W3C Technical Information

March 20, 2025

Philippe Le Hegaret, plh@w3.org,
Technical Programming(*) and Project Lead

The W3C Technical Team

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W3C Process: organizational structure of the W3C and processes
W3C Patent Policy: handling of patents in the process of producing Web standards
Code of Conduct: accepted and acceptable behaviors
Guide: collected wisdom from Team, Chairs, etc.

45 Working Groups (WG): produce W3C Recommendations
11 Interest Groups (IG): forum for the exchange of ideas
141Community Groups (CG): socialize and incubate your ideas
Permanent Groups:
- 1 Technical Architecture Group (TAG): general Web architecture
- 1 Advisory Board (AB): guidance to the W3C Team

Has a Charter: Chair(s), Team Contact(s), scope and deliverables
Commit to Royalty-Free Licensing requirements when participating (but we send Calls for Exclusions)
Most of the work is done through GitHub: issues, pull requests (PRs)
W3C tracks 1778 GitHub repositories (139k horizontal issues - 115k closed and 23k open)
May meet weekly, monthly, etc. (most attend the Technical Plenary - TPAC)
Reach out to the Team Contact to get help/introduction

Write an explainer for your idea, including use cases
Identify a Community Group to foster your idea
Use a breakout session to attract attention
Write a specification, get it reviewed by the TAG
Get standard positions from other browser vendors (if applicable)
Once you have momentum, open an issue in W3C, including a potential working group home for it
Pitch your group to the Exploration Interest Group (coming soon)

Philippe Le Hegaret, plh@w3.org