The WHATWG<\/a> is a community of people interested in evolving the World Wide Web<\/a> through the development of HTML<\/a> and APIs<\/a> needed for Web Applications<\/a>. It was founded in 2004 by individuals from Apple<\/a>, the Mozilla Foundation<\/a>, and Opera Software<\/a>. The group was formed in response to the W3C<\/a> (World Wide Web Consortium) and its direction toward XHTML<\/a>, which the founders believed did not meet the needs of real-world Web Development<\/a>.<\/p> The primary output of the WHATWG<\/a> is the HTML Living Standard<\/a>. Unlike previous versioned iterations of HTML<\/a>, such as HTML4<\/a> or HTML5<\/a>, the HTML Living Standard<\/a> is continuously updated to reflect the current state of the web and browser implementation. This approach ensures that the Specification<\/a> stays relevant and addresses bugs or new features in real-time. The WHATWG<\/a> also maintains the DOM<\/a> (Document Object Model), Fetch API<\/a>, and URL Standard<\/a>.<\/p> In 2019, a major memorandum of understanding was signed between the W3C<\/a> and the WHATWG<\/a> to collaborate on a single version of HTML<\/a> and the DOM<\/a>, effectively making the WHATWG<\/a> the primary body for these standards. More information regarding their governance can be found on the official WHATWG FAQ<\/a> and the HTML Specification repository<\/a>.<\/p>