A W3C Recommendation indicates that a specification is stable, contributes to Web interoperability, and has been reviewed by the W3C membership, who favour its adoption by the industry. HTML currently serves as the lingua franca for millions of people publishing hypertext on the Web. XML is bringing the Web forward as an environment that better meets the needs of all its participants, allowing content creators to make structured data that can be easily processed and transformed to meet the varied needs of users and their devices. The answer was to take HTML 4.0, and rewrite it as an XML application. In simple terms that means making the HTML a well-formed XML document where start and end tags are always there and match precisely.
Empty elements have to use the correct syntax.
The benefits of XML syntax include extensibility and modularity. With HTML, authors had a fixed set of elements to use, with no variation. People browsing the Web with cell phones or other mobile devices want Web content tailored to their needs. People with disabilities need ways to transform content into accessible formats. CWI always has been at the forefront of developments on the Internet and the World Wide Web.