W3C Overview

• Why W3C, and what W3C is
• Overview of areas of work
• Examples of future challenges

Why W3C?

• Growth of web protocols
• Threat of fragmentation
• Need for new features
• Need for neutral party

What is W3C?

• ~ 150 member companies
• 3 host institutes
  • MIT Lab for Computer Science, USA
  • INRIA, France
  • Keio University, Japan
• ~30 staff

What does W3C do?

• Provide a neutral forum for meeting
• Technically expert specification editing
• Achieving consensus
• Staff working with members
• Working Drafts and Recommendations, not standards
• Reference code where appropriate

W3C meetings

• Advisory Committee
• Workshops
• Working groups
• Informal meetings

Technical areas

1. User Interface
2. Technology and Society
3. Web Architecture

1. User Interface

• Hypertext (HTML)
• Style Sheets (CSS)
• Graphics and 3D (PNG, VRML etc)
• Internationalization

2. Technology and Society

• Parental Selection (PICS)
• Security
• Payment (JEPI)
• Protocol Extension (PEP)
• Demographics and Privacy
• Intellectual Property Rights

3. Architecture

• Web object access (HTTP)
• Greater efficiency etc (HTTP-NG)
• Audio and Video
• Object Oriented systems and W3
• Consistency

Future challenges

• Distribution of information
  • Where to put copies?
  • How to find a copy?
• Intellectual Property Rights ("IPR")
  • Describing owner, licensee, license
• Agents
  • Security framework for trust
  • Compatible execution environments
  • Semantics of interactions

Conclusion: W3C members

• A seat at the table
• An understanding of other member's needs
• Advance information
• A neutral place to meet