W3C and Open Standards
LinuxAsia Conference & Expo, Delhi, India, 10 February, 2006
Ivan Herman, W3C
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
“To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols
and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web”
- Founded by Tim Berners-Lee in 1994
- Develops open Recommendations (Web Standards)
- Engages in education, outreach, develops guidelines…
- A neutral forum for building consensus around Web
standards
W3C’s Long Term Goals
- Web for Everyone
- regardless of language, user capabilities, geographical location,
device used for access,…
- Web on Everything
- not only PC-s, but Phones, PDA-s, Television,…
- Knowledge Base, Advanced data searching and
sharing
- information for both human and machine processing
- Trust and Confidence
- technologies for collaborative environment
- a Web with accountability, security, confidence, and
confidentiality
The W3C Technology Stack…
But… Why Bother?
- Why bother about standards at all?
- Why bother about open standards?
Some Markets Where Standards are Important
- Mobile telephony
- Anything on the web
- Anything which plugs into power
- Graphics (programming of graphics systems; exchange of pictures,
graphics, visualizing data, …)
- Digital photography (camera data, raw formats, annotations, …)
- Railways
- eGovernment
- …
But: Who Benefits? Is it
- … my division?
- … my company?
- … my competition? The first mover?
- … my country?
- … my business area?
- … the open source community?
- … society at large? (eg health sites, news, etc)
These are legitimate questions companies, groups, institutions may
ask…
Answer 1: Internet Stack Benefits
Separate markets exist for:
- hardware
- operating system
- connectivity (IP)
- browsers
- search services
- specific application areas (book sales, advertisements, etc.)
- etc
Open standards allow different layers to evolve independently and
therefore faster and better!
Answer 2: IT User/Vendor Benefits
- Avoids vendor lock-in
- Access for all — accessibility, new devices
- Unexpected reuse (see the arrival of the Mobile Web!)
- Cross-application integration (Web Services, Semantic Web)
And… How do you Measure the Cost of
- … of the US still using feet and pounds?
- … of power sockets being different all over the World?
- … of using different widths between rails in, say, Spain, Ukraine,
etc, and than the rest of Europe
- … of US cellphones not being GSM?
- … of the first WAP not being an open Internet platform?
- … of U Minn asking for a fee for Gopher in 1993?
Gopher Example
- … of U Minn asking for a fee for Gopher in 1993?
[Source: GiorgiaTech]
Wap 1 Example
- … of the first WAP not being an open Internet platform? (eg, ignored
other Web content)
[Source: T-mobile]
But: It Is a Difficult Decision!
- Plan A:
- Pursue standard. Commit resources. Transition products. Work with
competitors. Encourage it to to all take off.
- Plan B:
- Continue working in isolation. Keep proprietary control of
technologies and customers. Hope to impose it as “de-facto”
standard (at least locally, among your clients and users).
Participation costs
Yes, there are costs…:
- Strategist participates in standards planning
- Experts participate in standards group
- Product development aligns with upcoming standards
- Marketing of new standards
Participation direct benefit
They are there, too!
- Strategy is informed by community
- Expert effort is multiplied 10-100 fold (!)
- Product development may use shared codebase
- Marketing effort is multiplied
Ie, When Compared…
|
Costs |
Benefit (fail) |
Benefit (success) |
| Plan A |
- participation
- product transition
- standard promotion
|
- conformance to a sidelined standard
|
- market size jump
- market share jump
|
| Plan B |
- normal product development
- normal product promotion
|
|
- market share loss
- catch-up cost
|
Often, participation carries the least risk
So What Are Open Standards?
Open Standards: an EU View
- The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
organization
- The standard specification document is available either freely or at a
nominal charge
- The intellectual property of the standard is made irrevocably available
on a royalty free basis
- No constraints on the re-use of the standard.
[Source: European
Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services]
Open Standards: W3C’s View
- Transparency
- public process
- public access to technical discussions, minutes,…
- Relevance
- start based on due analysis and market needs for all,
including, eg, aspects of internationalization, accessibility,
…
- Openness
- anybody can participate
- participation of users and developers; industry and research;
governments and public
- Impartial and consensus based
- guaranteed fairness
- equal weight for each participant
- Availability
- free access to standard documents (not even a nominal fee!)
- clear process for translations
- clear IPR rules
- Maintenance
- testing, errata, revisions…
Success of Internet and Web depended/depends on open
standards
Open Standard ≠ Free All Along!
- Development of Standards does cost money (think of, say,
testing, errata!)
- Some organizations charge for their Standards (e.g., ISO)
- Others rely on membership fees or external grants/sponsors for the
development
- W3C relies on both:
- it has 400+ members coming from all spectrums
- it also receives R&D grants from the EU, DARPA, or national
fundings
- developments are done by engineers delegated by members
- fees and grants help in keeping up its infrastructure and a small
staff (around 60)
So How This Work at W3C?
- Transparency
- W3C’s process
document is publicly available
- W3C archives all its mailing lists and minutes; some accessible to
all W3C members, some to the general public
- Relevance
- per process, the work must begin by a public requirement
document
- all work is continuously checked against accessibility,
internationalization, etc
- Openness
- any organization can become a member
- documents are periodically released to the public
- groups must respond and document all public
comment
- Impartial and consensus based
- the working groups’ work is based on consensus
- vendor neutrality guides all actions of W3C
- all members have equal rights at W3C
- Availability
- all W3C recommendations are free to the public
- W3C has an active (volunteer based) translation programme (700+
translations are available)
- W3C has defined a clear Patent Policy
- Maintenance
- testing, errata, revisions… (“life after rec”)
Document Progress at a Glance…
Patent Problem Grew …
- Original W3C process became increasingly inadequate
- fierce competition to exploit the commercial potential of the
Web
- increasing number of patents asserted on foundational Web
technologies
- increasing level of concern, confusion, legal actions, delays
- Perceived risk to the Web business model, e.g.
- …to the continued development of open Web standards
- …to the continued growth of the Web as a medium for
communication
- …to the continued growth of the Web as an instrument of
commerce
W3C Had to Develop its Own PP
- W3C was forced to deal with the issue
- Was a long, tedious, and very controversial work
- torn between demands of full royalty free and rand (reasonable and
non-discriminatory)
- torn between the open source community and big companies
- At the end, a policy was published in 2004, first of its kind among
standard setting organizations
Patent Policy in a Nutshell
Goal: Produce Recommendations implementable on Royalty-Free basis
and allow technical work to with minimal interruption
Method:
- W3C RF obligations for Working Group participants
- the participating organization formally commits to the W3C
Royalty-Free License requirements for patents found to be
“essential” to the Recommendation.
- W3C RF licensing definition
- must be available to all implementers and users
- may be limited to implementations of the Recommendation
- must not charge a fee or royalty
- must not impose any other material conditions, such as requirements
to use other technologies, etc.
- disclosure rules
- Working Group participants are not required to disclose
known patents as long as the participating organization commits to
licensing those patents according to the W3C Royalty-Free License
requirements.
- exclusion
- participants may exclude specific patent claims from the licensing
commitment
- must be done at the beginning
- Working Group knows and may try to avoid those features in
the recommendation
What Can You Do to Help?
- Use and promote open standards (including W3C’s
), whenever and wherever
you can
- Exercise pressure on vendors to abide to standards
- If you can: demand from governmental, research, etc, projects to rely
on open standards
What Can You Do to Help W3C?
- Provide your technical comments on all drafts; don’t be shy!
- Be the first to implement a new standard
- Become a supporter of
W3C, even a small sum is valuable, or…
- …if you can influence your institution: get it to join W3C as a member!
Conclusions
- Open Standards are vital for the progression of the Web (and
elsewhere…)
- Creation of Open Standards need a clear and well documented process to
be credible
- A clear and well documented Patent Policy is vital
- We believe that W3C sets a good example…
Thank you for
your attention
W3C and Open Standards
