World Wide Web Consortium

Last updated

World Wide Web Consortium
AbbreviationW3C
Formation1 October 1994;29 years ago (1994-10-01)
Type Standards organization
PurposeDeveloping protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web
Headquarters Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Location
Coordinates 42°21′43″N71°05′26″W / 42.36194°N 71.09056°W / 42.36194; -71.09056
Region served
Worldwide
Membership
460 member organizations [2]
Director
 Tim Berners-Lee
Staff
63
Website www.w3.org OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in the development of standards for the World Wide Web. As of 5 March 2023, W3C had 462 members. [3] [2] W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web.

Contents

History

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in October 1994. [4] It was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science with support from the European Commission, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which had pioneered the ARPANET, one of the predecessors to the Internet. [3] It was located in Technology Square until 2004, when it moved, with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, to the Stata Center. [5]

The organization tries to foster compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards defined by the W3C. Incompatible versions of HTML are offered by different vendors, causing inconsistency in how web pages are displayed. The consortium tries to get all those vendors to implement a set of core principles and components that are chosen by the consortium.

It was originally intended that CERN host the European branch of W3C; however, CERN wished to focus on particle physics, not information technology. In April 1995, the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation became the European host of W3C, with Keio University Research Institute at SFC becoming the Asian host in September 1996. [6] Starting in 1997, W3C created regional offices around the world. As of September 2009, it had eighteen World Offices covering Australia, the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), Brazil, China, Finland, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and, as of 2016, the United Kingdom and Ireland. [7]

In October 2012, W3C convened a community of major web players and publishers to establish a MediaWiki wiki that seeks to document open web standards called the WebPlatform and WebPlatform Docs.

In January 2013, Beihang University became the Chinese host. [8]

In 2022 the W3C WebFonts Working Group won an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for standardizing font technology for custom downloadable fonts and typography for web and TV devices. [9]

On 1 January 2023, it reformed as a public-interest 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. [10] [11]

Specification maturation

W3C develops technical specifications for HTML5, CSS, SVG, WOFF, the Semantic Web stack, XML, and other technologies. [12] Sometimes, when a specification becomes too large, it is split into independent modules that can mature at their own pace. Subsequent editions of a module or specification are known as levels and are denoted by the first integer in the title (e.g. CSS3 = Level 3). Subsequent revisions on each level are denoted by an integer following a decimal point (for example, CSS2.1 = Revision 1).

The W3C standard formation process is defined within the W3C process document, outlining four maturity levels through which each new standard or recommendation must progress. [13]

Working draft (WD)

After enough content has been gathered from 'editor drafts' and discussion, it may be published as a working draft (WD) for review by the community. A WD document is the first form of a standard that is publicly available. Commentary by virtually anyone is accepted, though no promises are made with regard to action on any particular element commented upon. [13]

At this stage, the standard document may have significant differences from its final form. As such, anyone who implements WD standards should be ready to significantly modify their implementations as the standard matures. [13]

Candidate recommendation (CR)

A candidate recommendation is a version of a more mature standard than the WD. At this point, the group responsible for the standard is satisfied that the standard meets its goal. The purpose of the CR is to elicit aid from the development community on how implementable the standard is. [13]

The standard document may change further, but significant features are mostly decided at this point. The design of those features can still change due to feedback from implementors. [13]

Proposed recommendation (PR)

A proposed recommendation is the version of a standard that has passed the prior two levels. The users of the standard provide input. At this stage, the document is submitted to the W3C Advisory Council for final approval. [13]

While this step is important, it rarely causes any significant changes to a standard as it passes to the next phase. [13]

W3C recommendation (REC)

This is the most mature stage of development. At this point, the standard has undergone extensive review and testing, under both theoretical and practical conditions. The standard is now endorsed by the W3C, indicating its readiness for deployment to the public, and encouraging more widespread support among implementors and authors. [13]

Recommendations can sometimes be implemented incorrectly, partially, or not at all, but many standards define two or more levels of conformance that developers must follow if they wish to label their product as W3C-compliant. [13]

Later revisions

A recommendation may be updated or extended by separately-published, non-technical errata or editor drafts until sufficient substantial edits accumulate for producing a new edition or level of the recommendation. Additionally, the W3C publishes various kinds of informative notes which are to be used as references. [13]

Certification

Unlike the Internet Society and other international standards bodies, the W3C does not have a certification program. The W3C has decided, for now, that it is not suitable to start such a program, owing to the risk of creating more drawbacks for the community than benefits. [13]

Administration

In January 2023, after 28 years of being jointly administered by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (located in Stata Center) in the United States, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics  [ fr ] [14] (in Sophia Antipolis, France), Keio University (in Japan) and Beihang University (in China), the W3C incorporated as a legal entity, becoming a public-interest not-for-profit organization. [15]

The W3C has a staff team of 70–80 worldwide as of 2015. [16] W3C is run by a management team which allocates resources and designs strategy, led by CEO Jeffrey Jaffe [17] (as of March 2010), former CTO of Novell. It also includes an advisory board that supports strategy and legal matters and helps resolve conflicts. [18] [19] The majority of standardization work is done by external experts in the W3C's various working groups. [20]

Membership

The Consortium is governed by its membership. The list of members is available to the public. [2] Members include businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, governmental entities, and individuals. [21]

Membership requirements are transparent except for one requirement: An application for membership must be reviewed and approved by the W3C. Many guidelines and requirements are stated in detail, but there is no final guideline about the process or standards by which membership might be finally approved or denied. [22]

The cost of membership is given on a sliding scale, depending on the character of the organization applying and the country in which it is located. [23] Countries are categorized by the World Bank's most recent grouping by gross national income per capita. [24]

Criticism

In 2012 and 2013, the W3C started considering adding DRM-specific Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) to HTML5, which was criticised as being against the openness, interoperability, and vendor neutrality that distinguished websites built using only W3C standards from those requiring proprietary plug-ins like Flash. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] On 18 September 2017, the W3C published the EME specification as a recommendation, leading to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's resignation from W3C. [30] [31] As feared by the opponents of EME, as of 2020, none of the widely used Content Decryption Modules used with EME is available for licensing without a per-browser licensing fee. [32] [33]

Standards

W3C/Internet Engineering Task Force standards (over Internet protocol suite):

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Document Object Model</span> Convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML, and XML documents

The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent interface that treats an HTML or XML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document with a logical tree. Each branch of the tree ends in a node, and each node contains objects. DOM methods allow programmatic access to the tree; with them one can change the structure, style or content of a document. Nodes can have event handlers attached to them. Once an event is triggered, the event handlers get executed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTML</span> HyperText Markup Language

HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript.

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is an XML-based vector image format for defining two-dimensional graphics, having support for interactivity and animation. The SVG specification is an open standard developed by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Berners-Lee</span> English computer scientist, inventor of the World Wide Web (born 1955)

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. He is a professorial research fellow at the University of Oxford and a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XML</span> Markup language by the W3C for encoding of data

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. The World Wide Web Consortium's XML 1.0 Specification of 1998 and several other related specifications—all of them free open standards—define XML.

VoiceXML (VXML) is a digital document standard for specifying interactive media and voice dialogs between humans and computers. It is used for developing audio and voice response applications, such as banking systems and automated customer service portals. VoiceXML applications are developed and deployed in a manner analogous to how a web browser interprets and visually renders the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) it receives from a web server. VoiceXML documents are interpreted by a voice browser and in common deployment architectures, users interact with voice browsers via the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with disabilities. People with disabilities encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web. Since they often require non-standard devices and browsers, making websites more accessible also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources. According to a US government study, 71% of website visitors with disabilities will leave a website that is not accessible.

Web standards are the formal, non-proprietary standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites, and a philosophy of web design and development that includes those methods.

The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a policy expression language that provides a flexible and interoperable information model, vocabulary, and encoding mechanisms for representing statements about the usage of content and services. ODRL became an endorsed W3C Recommendation in 2018.

RDFa or Resource Description Framework in Attributes is a W3C Recommendation that adds a set of attribute-level extensions to HTML, XHTML and various XML-based document types for embedding rich metadata within Web documents. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) data-model mapping enables its use for embedding RDF subject-predicate-object expressions within XHTML documents. It also enables the extraction of RDF model triples by compliant user agents.

SCXML stands for State Chart XML: State Machine Notation for Control Abstraction. It is an XML-based markup language that provides a generic state-machine-based execution environment based on Harel statecharts.

In computer science and web development, XML Events is a W3C standard for handling events that occur in an XML document. These events are typically caused by users interacting with the web page using a device, such as a web browser on a personal computer or mobile phone.

The Extensible User Interface Protocol, or XUP, is a proposed web standard. XUP is a SOAP-based protocol for communicating events in a user interface, where the user interface is described by an XML document. The specification does not limit what format the XML document is in, or what event model is used for communicating over XUP. Examples given in the specification for possible user interface languages include XHTML, Wireless Markup Language, and XUL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HTML5</span> Fifth and previous version of hypertext markup language

HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML Living Standard. It is maintained by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG), a consortium of the major browser vendors.

Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) is a binary XML format for exchange of data on a computer network. It was developed by the W3C's Efficient Extensible Interchange Working Group and is one of the most prominent efforts to encode XML documents in a binary data format, rather than plain text. Using EXI format reduces the verbosity of XML documents as well as the cost of parsing. Improvements in the performance of writing (generating) content depends on the speed of the medium being written to, the methods and quality of actual implementations. EXI is useful for

The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is a community of people interested in evolving HTML and related technologies. The WHATWG was founded by individuals from Apple Inc., the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software, leading Web browser vendors in 2004.

Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">EPUB</span> E-book format

EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for electronic publication and is sometimes stylized as ePub. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smartphones, tablets, and computers. EPUB is a technical standard published by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It became an official standard of the IDPF in September 2007, superseding the older Open eBook (OEB) standard.

The Web platform is a collection of technologies developed as open standards by the World Wide Web Consortium and other standardization bodies such as the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, the Unicode Consortium, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and Ecma International. It is the umbrella term introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium, and in 2011 it was defined as "a platform for innovation, consolidation and cost efficiencies" by W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe. Being built on The evergreen Web has allowed for the addition of new capabilities while addressing security and privacy risks. Additionally, developers are enabled to build interoperable content on a cohesive platform.

Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) is a W3C specification for providing a communication channel between web browsers and the Content Decryption Module (CDM) software which implements digital rights management (DRM). This allows the use of HTML5 video to play back DRM-wrapped content such as streaming video services without the use of heavy third-party media plugins like Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight. The use of a third-party key management system may be required, depending on whether the publisher chooses to scramble the keys.

References

  1. ↑ "W3C Invites Chinese Web Developers, Industry, Academia to Assume Greater Role in Global Web Innovation". W3C. 20 January 2013. Retrieved 30 November 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 "Current Members & Testimonials". World Wide Web Consortium. Archived from the original on 5 March 2023. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  3. 1 2 "About us". W3C. Archived from the original on 21 March 2022. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  4. ↑ R, Valsala (1 July 2022). "Can we imagine life without the World Wide Web?". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  5. ↑ Michael Blanding, "The Past and Future of Kendall Square", MIT Technology Review August 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Press release: Keio University joins the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and INRIA in Hosting the International World Wide Web Consortium". W3C. 9 September 1996. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  7. ↑ Jacobs, Ian (June 2009). "W3C Offices". Archived from the original on 6 September 2009. Retrieved 14 September 2009.
  8. ↑ "Beihang University Becomes Newest Institution to Host W3C". W3C. 20 January 2013.
  9. ↑ Pedersen, Erik, "Technology & Engineering Emmys Winners Unveiled". Deadline. April 25, 2022.
  10. ↑ "W3C re-launched as a public-interest non-profit organization". W3C. 31 January 2023. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  11. ↑ Gordon, Rachel (2 February 2023). "World Wide Web Consortium is now a public-interest nonprofit organization". Massachusetts Institute of Technology News. Retrieved 3 August 2023.
  12. ↑ "Standards". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Development Process". W3C. 12 April 2005. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  14. ↑ "ERCIM – the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics". ercim.eu. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  15. ↑ "Facts about W3C". W3C. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  16. ↑ "W3C people list". W3C. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  17. ↑ "Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C CEO". W3C. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  18. ↑ Jackson, Joab (8 March 2010). "W3C pulls former Novell CTO for CEO spot". Itworld.com. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2012.
  19. ↑ "The World Wide Web Consortium: Building a Better Internet". Mays Digital. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
  20. ↑ "Working Groups". W3C. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  21. ↑ "Membership FAQ". W3C. 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
  22. ↑ Jacobs, Ian (2008). "Join W3C" . Retrieved 14 September 2008.
  23. ↑ W3C Membership Fee Calculator
  24. ↑ "World Bank Country Classification". Web.worldbank.org. Retrieved 3 July 2010.
  25. ↑ Cory Doctorow (12 March 2013). "What I wish Tim Berners-Lee understood about DRM". Technology blog at guardian.co.uk . Archived from the original on 19 March 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  26. ↑ Glyn Moody (13 February 2013). "BBC Attacks the Open Web, GNU/Linux in Danger". Open Enterprise blog at ComputerworldUK.com . Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
  27. ↑ Scott Gilbertson (12 February 2013). "DRM for the Web? Say It Ain't So". Webmonkey . Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 24 March 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  28. ↑ "Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb". Defective by Design . Free Software Foundation. March 2013. Archived from the original on 3 April 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  29. ↑ Danny O'Brien (October 2013). "Lowering Your Standards: DRM and the Future of the W3C". Electronic Frontier Foundation . Retrieved 3 October 2013.
  30. ↑ Peter Bright (18 September 2017). "HTML5 DRM finally makes it as an official W3C Recommendation". Ars Technica . Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  31. ↑ Cory Doctorow (18 September 2017). "An open letter to the W3C Director, CEO, team and membership". Blog at Electronic Frontier Foundation . Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  32. ↑ "Three years after the W3C approved a DRM standard, it's no longer possible to make a functional indie browser". Boing Boing. 8 January 2020. Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  33. ↑ Doctorow, Cory (3 April 2019). "After years of insisting that DRM in HTML wouldn't block open source implementations, Google says it won't support open source implementations". Boing Boing. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  34. ↑ Groth, Paul; Moreau, Luc (30 April 2013). "PROV-Overview: An Overview of the PROV Family of Documents". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
  35. ↑ Simon Stewart, (Apple); David Burns, (BrowserStack) (24 June 2022). "WebDriver". WebDriver W3C Working Draft 24 June 2022. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
  36. ↑ "WebXR Device API — W3C Candidate Recommendation Snapshot". The Immersive Web Working Group/Community Group. 31 March 2022. Archived from the original on 23 May 2023. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
  37. ↑ Sire, Stéphane; Vanoirbeek, Christine; Quint, Vincent; Roisin, Cécile (2010). Authoring XML all the time, everywhere and by everyone (PDF). XML Prague 2010. Prague: Center of Excellence - Institute for Theoretical Computer Science. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.660.6575 . Archived (PDF) from the original on 21 January 2022 – via Project WAM.
  38. ↑ Kia, Émilien; Quint, Vincent; Vatton, Irène (15 December 2009). "XTiger language specification". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
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