An initial public working draft of "Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web" has been published on the W3C website. The WD seeks to establish a reference set of principles for Web architecture. The World Wide Web, according to this working draft, "is a networked information system. Web Architecture is the set of principles that all agents in the system follow to create the large-scale effect of a shared information space. Identification, data formats, and protocols are the main technical components of Web Architecture, but the large-scale effect depends on social behavior as well." Agents are programs acting on behalf of another person, entity, or process that exchange information. The main sections of the document discuss identifiers, formats, and protocols; each section highlights principles of Web architecture and notes on good practice. The World Wide Web architecture "consists of: (1) Identifiers - a single specification to identify objects in the system, namely, the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI); (2) Formats - a nonexclusive set of data format specifications designed for interchange between agents in the system; this includes several data formats used in isolation or in combination (e.g., XHTML, CSS, PNG, XLink, RDF, SMIL animation), as well as technologies for designing new data formats (XML, XML Namespaces); (3) Protocols - a small and nonexclusive set of protocol specifications for interchanging information between agents, including HTTP, SMTP, and others. Several of these protocols share a reliance on the Internet Media Type (or, 'MIME') the metadata/packaging system."

The document is edited by Ian Jacobs, and its authors are the participants of W3C's Technical Architecture Group: Tim Berners-Lee (Chair, W3C), Tim Bray (Antarctica Systems), Dan Connolly (W3C), Paul Cotton (Microsoft), Roy Fielding (Day Software), Chris Lilley (W3C), David Orchard (BEA Systems), Norman Walsh (Sun), and Stuart Williams (Hewlett-Packard).

Bibliographic information: Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web. W3C Working Draft 30-August-2002. Edited by Ian Jacobs (W3C). Named authors include: Tim Berners-Lee (Chair, W3C), Tim Bray (Antarctica Systems), Dan Connolly (W3C), Paul Cotton (Microsoft), Roy Fielding (Day Software), Chris Lilley (W3C), David Orchard (BEA Systems), Norman Walsh (Sun), and Stuart Williams (Hewlett-Packard). Version URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-webarch-20020830/. Latest version: http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/.

Document status: "This draft represents substantial input from TAG participants, but does not yet represent consensus. It is also incomplete; sections 1 and 2 are the most developed, 3 and 4 the least. The TAG has published a number of findings that address specific architecture issues. Parts of those findings may appear in subsequent drafts.