How does the W3C define a "Web Application"?

Question

I thought I'd read a little more about the meta tag for HTML 5 and I came across a metadata name, "application-name", and it reads:

The value must be a short free-form string giving the name of the Web application that the page represents. If the page is not a Web application, the application-name metadata name must not be used. Translations of the Web application's name may be given, using the attribute to specify the language of each name.

In short, if the web page implementing <meta name="application-name"... is not a Web Application, then we must not use application-name.

What exactly is, or how does the W3C define a Web Application?

Edit: The Close-voter obviously did not understand my intentions. I am asking this because I am trying to decide whether or not I should be using it.

Answer 1

Although there doesn't appear to be any "official" W3C definition of what exactly a "Web Application" is, you can infer some of what W3C intends for it to mean through some of their other materials and/or some commonly accepted definitions on the internet.

According to this document, a W3C Mobile Web Applications Best Practices Recommendation (published 14 December 2010):

the term "Web application" refers to a Web page (XHTML or a variant thereof + CSS) or collection of Web pages delivered over HTTP which use server-side or client-side processing (e.g. JavaScript) to provide an "application-like" experience within a Web browser. Web applications are distinct from simple Web content (the focus of BP1) in that they include locally executable elements of interactivity and persistent state.

I believe that using your best judgement should suffice (especially in the absence of a formal W3C definition).

Answer 2

HTML5 CR does not define “Web application”. On the contrary, in 1.1 Background, it characterizes the expression as vague (though very important): “The main area that has not been adequately addressed by HTML is a vague subject referred to as Web Applications.”

Any other W3C document, unless it were normatively cited for a definition of “web application”, cannot resolve the issue raised about <meta name="application-name"...>.