World-Wide Web Consortium

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This paper summarises the requirement for a World-Wide Web consortium (W3C).

Background

The world-wide web is a universe of information. The web's existence relies on global networks, but users of the web are not aware of this. The web allows human communication and cooperation by sharing knowledge, and opens this to ordinary people who need no technical skill. By pointing and clicking, anyone can find their way through, and even contribute to, a wonderland of multimedia and hypertext information.

First designed at CERN in1989, the web has spread exponentially, doubling every few months. During 1993 this explosions of available information broke into public awareness. Commercial, educational and government bodies are all rushing to get on board an enabling technology.

Meanwhile, the designers at CERN, and in the many laboratories around the world who develop web-related code in informal collaboration, have been relying on CERN for coordination, and steering of this project. CERN's charter, however, is for particle physics research, which precludes CERN funding technology of such wide application. At the same time, companies which are becoming increasingly committed to the web as a way of working and doing business are calling for a central body to define the web, ensure its stability and smooth progression through continued technological innovation.

It is therefore proposed to form of a consortium to provide this function.

Aims

The aims of the consortium are as follows:

To define the World-Wide Web
To act as a primary point of contact for those expressing interest in the web
To coordinate the development of the communication standards (network protocols, etc) on which the web is based;
To ensure that current trends in research are taken into account
To support, develop and collect public domain software to act as reference implementation of these protocols, etc;
To promote the use of the web in new domains, especially within education, and interchange between governments, research, and industry.
To aid especially the less technically developed countries in using the web for the rapid transfer of knowledge, diffusion of culture and as an economic enabler;

Activities

In order to accomplish these aims, the consortium shall manage and support (directly or through subcontract)

Exchange information with the public, the press and members about web-related activities.
Coordinate technological innovation. Ensure that fragmentation of standards does not occur, and that enhancements will have the required properties of compatability and scalability, and will represent the leading edge of technology in the field. Define compliance with standards. Liaise with general standard bodies.
Develop specific enhancements to protocols and reference software in response to requests from contributing members.
Maintain registries of servers, of organizations providing web-related services, and of web-compatible products.

Technical design is coordinated by the consortium, but decisions will be taken by rough consensus among participants in open discussions taking place over the networks and, when deemed appropriate, at physical meetings. The board of the consortium and if necessary the president will rule in the case of arbitrary decisisions, or impasse.

Priorities for activities of the consorium is determined by the board.

Membership

Membership of the consortium is available at a number of levels.

Principal members

Principal members contribute to the running of the consortium financially, or in certain cases by the provisiion of manpower or other facilities. They may, according to their degree of contribution, nominate a member of the board of the consortium. Principal members are actively engages in web-related business, and contribute to determining priorities and technical direction.

Sponsoring members

Sponsoring members contribute resources to the consortium, but are not actively involved in the development of the web. As interested parties they may make their priorities known, and will benefit diretly from all

Individual members

Individual membership is designed to allow anyone to show their support for the consortium and gain a direct source of information on developments related to the web. Electronic communication with members will be used to keep overheads low.

The Board

The governing board of the Consortium shall be composed of representative of the founding Principal members, and representatives of future Principlal Members as agreed with the existing board. The board shall meet physically at least once a year.

Executive

The day to day running of the consortium shall be accompilshed by the President and the consortium staff.

Consitution

The consortium is consituted as a non-profit organisation in the state of [Delaware?], with offices in [??, USA]. An office or sister organisation in Euope is proposed in [Thoiry, France?] subject to available funding. The European consortiumshall be financially independent, with possible cross-funding wher necessary. Ofiices on other continents may be set up as the demand arises.

Resource requirements

The consortium provides its services by subcontract to companies, or by means of its own staff. The manpower necessary will of course scale with the penetration of the web. Hopefully the delegation of much of the work to independent centers of excellence in specific areas (SIGWeb local chapters), specific industries and academic disciplines (virtual library departments) will allow the overhead of the consortium to be grow linearly even during the exponential growth of the web.

Initial minimum

The following is an estimate of the minimum manpower necessary for the consortium staff to pursue the aims set out without being completely overloaded from the start.

Help desk: 2 FTE -- Electronic mail, fax, phone and limited paper mail response.
Software coordination: 2FTE -- Edit reference code, edit specifications. Integrate contributions from developing institutes. Test proposed protocol enhancements.
System administrarion: Running server, maintaining security, maintaining software archive.
Manangement: President, Adminstrative manager, Office manager.

Extra staff would be required for organisation of conferences, large press events, demonstrations, etc. Some work may be provided by visitors top the consortium.