The W3C has released an initial Working Draft of Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web, reflecting the work of its Technical Architecture Group (TAG).

The document "strives to establish a reference set of principles for Web architecture", "the set of principles that all agents in the system follow to create the large-scale effect of a shared information space".

The draft explores Identifiers and Resources (URI issues), formats, and protocols.

This first draft is necessarily incomplete:

"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."

The TAG maintains lists of findings and outstanding issues that may affect the development of the document. Comments on the draft should be sent to www-tag@w3.org.

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• W3C announces TAG membership
• W3C publish TAG Charter
• W3C discussion of Technical Architecture Group