In our discussion with application developers the need to provide more visibility on the current and future positioning of the Web as a platform for applications was highlighted as an important factor in terms of strategic decisions and investments.
Progressive Web Apps have brought together a set of unique features building up on the strengths of the Web as a platform (instantaneousness, shareability, discoverability, privacy & security guarantees) and filling its historical gaps with modern software platforms with stronger support for offline experiences, background services, and OS integration.
The W3C team is in the early preparation phases of a workshop dedicated to building a roadmap for the Web as an application platform, setting the 5 to 10 years vision of where the platform needs to be, identifying the challenges that need to be solved to get there, and building a strong technical and social strategy to ensure a platform as open as the Web can achieve this vision.
We tentatively envision this workshop happening in September 2018, most likely on the US West Coast.
This repo serves as a way to organize discussions on this topic, and will be used to identify the issues that would most benefit from in-person discussion in that timeframe.