Welcome! 2006 W3C Technical Plenary Day

Steve Bratt
Chief Executive Officer
World Wide Web Consortium

1 March 2006

These Slides: http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0301-sb-tp-intro/

Why Are We Here?

• This Week
• This Day
• This Talk ...

Outline of This Talk

• Vision for the Future
• New Web Standards Work
  • Recommendations, Groups
• New Innovative, Leading Initiatives
  • Incubator, International Outreach
• New, Improved Resources for Supporting Our Work
  • Rec Tracking, Group Admin, Meetings
• Agenda for Technical Plenary Day
  • Tips for Making the Most of It

We Are Leading the Web to its Full Potential ...

• by providing the Vision to Lead, and
• by engineering the standards that are transforming the Web ...

... from a Web of Documents ... ... toward One Web: of Data and Services on Everything for Everyone

(Membership / Benefits / "At a Glance" brochure)

New W3C Web Standards

• 9 Recommendations released in 2005:
  • Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language 2.1 and 2.0 (2nd ed), xml:id, QA Framework: Specification Guidelines, XML Key Management Specification, XML Key Management Specification Bindings, Character Model for the World Wide Web 1.0: Fundamentals, SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism, Resource Representation SOAP Header Block, XML-binary Optimized Packaging

• 40+ TRs in Proposed and Candidate Rec, and Last Call.

New Work Started in 2005

• 11 (really) New Groups in 2005
  • Architecture
    • Efficient XML Interchange Working Group
    • XML Processing Model Working Group
    • I18N GEO and Tag Set Working Groups
    • XML Schema Patterns for Data Binding Working Group
  • Mobile Web
    • Best Practice and Device Description Working Groups
  • Rich Web Clients
    • Web APIs and Web Application Formats Working Group
  • Semantic Web
    • Rules Interchange Framework Working Group
    • Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group
• "New" Interaction and Ubiquitous Web Domains

(table, SVG-from-RDF, PNG)

Considerations for New Work in 2006

• W3C Workshops in 2006, and being planned
  • Ubiquitous Web, 9-10 March 2006, Tokyo, Japan
  • Transparency and Usability of Web Authentication, 15-16 March 2006, New York, USA
  • Internationalizing the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (planned)
• Other things to think about in 2006
  • Future of the Semantic Web Activity now under informal review
  • Future of the Web Services Activity now under informal review
  • New Mobile Web work now under informal review
  • Future of HTML, CSS, XForms, Privacy under consideration
  • More user-oriented Groups?

New Incubator Activity

• Targeting innovative specs, guidelines, applications
  • Not needing the scrutiny of Rec track (not critical to Web's foundation)
  • Not yet ready for Rec track (needs work, consensus building)
• Benefits
  • Rapid start of Incubator Group (XG)
  • Lightweight process, driven by W3C Members
  • Rapid finish within one year
  • W3C infrastructure leveraged
  • Consensus-building within W3C culture
  • Smooth transition to the W3C Rec Track, if desired and approved
  • 2 Patent Policy modes (disclosure only; or + statement of licensing intent)

Incubator: Ready for a Test Drive

• First XG launched in February 2006
  • Content Labels (@semantics, ICRA, IIT/NCSR, ILRT/University of Bristol, Segala, T-Online, Vodafone, Yahoo!)
• Several other groups are discussing possibilities now
• Contact Steve Bratt, if interested

International Outreach: Accomplishments

• World Summit on the Information Society, in Tunis, Tunisia
  • Web accessibility, Internet governance
• 20+ new Members under developing countries program
  • Membership gaps beginning to fill in (history)

• Translations
  • Completion of a Policy for Authorized W3C Translations
  • Over 700 voluntary, unofficial translations to date
• New W3C Offices
  • Opening of the India Office (photos) at C-DAC
  • Host for W3C's China Office selected
  • Looking for strong partners in Latin America

New Resources for Groups

• Implementation of the Patent Policy System
  • Strong support of policy (good discussion at Nov 05 AC Mtg)
  • About 200 Member have made 440 RF commitments in 27 WGs (fact sheet)
• Rec-Tracking
  • W3C Editors' Home Page, How to Organize a Recommendation Track Transition, Technical Report Publication Policy,
• Technical Procedures and Policy
  • URIs for W3C Namespaces, Version Management in W3C Technical Reports, How to Register an Internet Media Type for a W3C Specification, Style for Group-internal Drafts, Guidelines for Linking to Patent Policy Disclosure Pages
• Usability of Web page
  • Thinking about public page harmonization

New Big Meetings Calendar

• Co-locating 1st AC meetings with Web Conferences (WWW200n)
• Bi-annual Chairs calls
• Embedding 2nd AC meetings within Technical Plenary Weeks
  • Goal: Increase participation and synergies around all meetings
  • First test: 4-10 November 2007, Cambridge, MA, USA
  • Some interest in providing venue for multi-Group meetings in Feb/Mar 2007?

"AC Meeting" includes the blue and the purple boxes, with bold-italics text.

Today's Agenda

Summary (details)

• My Data, Your Data, The Web's Data: Challenges of Data Ownership

• Microformats
• SQL, XQuery and SPARQL: What's Wrong with this Picture?
• Lighting Talks (A)
• Lunch -- BOF Tables
• The Grid: What is the Grid and Why Does it Matter to W3C?
• Adventures in Formal Methods
• Rich Web Application Backplane
• Lightning Talks (B)
• Reception

Tips for Making the Most Out of the Day, #1

• Watch and listen to the speakers ...

  ...

  ...

  ...

• ... not your laptops (please)

Tips for Making the Most Out of the Day, #2

• Participate ...

  ... step up to the microphones

  ... ask questions

Tips for Making the Most Out of the Day, #3

• Get to know each other ...

  ... over breaks

  ... in the hallways

  ... at tonight's reception

Tips for Making the Most Out of the Day, #4

• Enjoy!