Standards, Proposals Process and the Future

47.1 Standardization

The W3C WebAssembly Community Group (proposals and design) and the Working Group (formal specs). The specification is formally defined (with a mechanized spec effort: SpecTec).

Proposal phases: 0: pre-proposal 1: feature proposal 2: spec text available 3: implementation phase

4: standardize (two web engines + tooling) 5: standardized (merged into the spec)

47.2 Spec Versions

The MVP: core types, linear memory, tables, imports/exports Sign extension, non-trapping float-to-int, multi-value, reference types, bulk memory, fixed-width SIMD

GC, typed function references, tail calls, exception handling (exnref), memory64, multiple memories, relaxed SIMD, extended const, deterministic profile, JS string builtins (JS API), custom annotation syntax

47.3 The Bytecode Alliance and WASI

The Bytecode Alliance (Mozilla, Fastly, Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat, Arm, Siemens, and others) develops Wasmtime, WAMR, Cranelift, wasm-tools, jco, and componentize tools. The WASI Subgroup governs WASI releases.

47.4 Looking Ahead

WASI 0.3 / 1.0 with native async, a broader Component Model adoption (registries, browser support for components via ESM integration), stack switching, shared-everything threads, better debugging (standardized debugging interfaces), WebGPU + Wasm for AI/graphics, Wasm on embedded (custom page sizes), and Wasm as a universal plugin and serverless runtime.