As the WHATWG clearly states, HTML5 is a living standard, and evolving constantly. W3C likes to have solid specs and therefore freezes it and gives it a name.

As the WHATWG clearly states, HTML5 is a living standard, and evolving constantly. W3C likes to have solid specs and therefore freezes it and gives it a name. Its nothing more than tagging a certain timepoint with a version number. I prefer the living standard. However, giving it a version name makes it easier to comunicate about sometimes. This blog posts makes it much clearer: http://blog.whatwg.org/html-and-html5 http://blog.whatwg.org/html-and-html5