W3C Overview

Daniel Dardailler

Director International Relations

May 2009

http://www.w3.org/2009/05/dd-w3c

What is the World Wide Web Consortium?

• Mission
• Structure
• People
• Process
• Standards

Leading the Web to its Full Potential

Founded by Tim Berners-Lee in 1994, W3C is:

• Providing the Vision to Lead
• Engineering the Open Standards that Make the Web Work ...

• From a Web of Documents ...
• Toward One Web ...
  • ... of Creators and Consumers
  • ... of Data and Services
  • ... on Everything
  • ... for Everyone

Organization: International Web Standards Body

Expanding base of international operations

• 3 Hosts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology | European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics | Keio University (map)
• 16 Offices: Australia | Benelux/Bénélux | Brasil | 中国 | Suomi | Deutschland und Österreich | Ελλάδα | Magyarország | भारत | ישראל | Italia | 한국 | المغرب | España | Southern Africa | Sverige | United Kingdom and Ireland | (map)

People: International Leadership and Cooperation

Expanding base of the world's leading technology organizations and technologists

• 400 W3C Members
• Adivsory Committee, Advisory Board, Technical Architecture Group
• 65 Member-neutral, globally-distributed Technical Staff
• Accountable to the Global Public

Who are W3C's Members?

"Third-class companies make products; second-class companies develop technology; first-class companies set standards."

• W3C's Members includes ...
  • most of the world's leading IT companies
  • other large and small companies
  • academic and research institutions
  • gov't, non-profit and standards organizations

• ... which are ...
  • developing Web-based products
  • using Web technologies
  • conducting research on the Web
  • developing specifications built upon W3C's work

* popular saying in Chinese business and government, from "China’s Post-WTO Technology Policy: Standards, Software and the Changing Nature of Techno-Nationalism", by Richard P. Suttmeier and Yao Xiangkui.
Full-fee Members (27 May 2007)

Why Do People Participate in W3C?

• Leadership
  • Introduce ideas through submissions, workshops, Incubator Groups
  • Influence standards through Working Group participation, review, implementation

• Early insight into market trends
  • Access world's foremost Web technologists from Member & Team
  • Plan for emerging technologies & markets through Member-confidential access

• Promoting image as innovator
  • Participate in international media activities, press releases, testimonials (e.g., MWI)
  • Display your logo on W3C site (250K visits/day) and W3C logo on your site

(Membership / Benefits)

Process: Developing Standards

• Process: Clear, effective, thorough => Coordination, consensus, interoperability
  • Member-neutrality: All Members have equal rights
  • Engineer dependencies (within W3C, and with 40+ Liaisons with SDOs)
• Incubator Activity
  • Quicker, lighter process for innovative efforts led by Members
• Consistent architectural framework:
  • Architecture of the World Wide Web, v1
• Industry-leading Patent Policy
  • Royalty-free licensing commitment

(Views of the Process: Life of Working Group, Recommendation Track)

W3C Engineers the Foundation of the Web

• Over 100 Web Standards to date (list / translations)
  • Including: HTML, XML, CSS, SOAP, SVG, Mobile Web BP, Voice XML, RDF, OWL, WCAG and more
• Domains
  • Interaction (Philippe Le Hégaret)
  • Technology and Society (Ralph Swick)
  • Ubiquitous Web (Philipp Hoschka)
  • Web Accessibility Initiative (Judy Brewer)
  • Communications (Ian Jacobs)
  • Systems (Ted Guild)

Building Community. Engineering Web Standards.

24 Activities... 65 Working, Interest and Coordination Groups; and 7 Incubator Groups

Summary

• Potentially large changes coming in the Web and the Consortium
  • Interesting times
• You can contribute to change and positive growth, and build value for you, your organization and the world
  • Leading, understand, implement
• We are here to help you contribute and realize value
  ...http://www.w3.org/