Main international standards organization for the World Wide Web
"WWWC" redirects here. For the radio station, see
WWWC (AM)
.
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,
[update]
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.
History
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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)
[
edit
]
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)
[
edit
]
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)
[
edit
]
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)
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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
[update]
.
[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
[
edit
]
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
[
edit
]
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
[update]
, none of the widely used
Content Decryption Modules
used with EME is available for licensing without a per-browser licensing fee.
[32]
[33]
Standards
[
edit
]
W3C/
Internet Engineering Task Force
standards (over
Internet protocol suite
):
- ActivityPub
, decentralized social networking protocol
- Common Gateway Interface
, dynamic server-side content standard
- CSS
- Data Catalog Vocabulary
- Document Object Model
- Encrypted Media Extensions
, DRM modules integration standard
- GRDDL
- HTML
, standard web markup language
- JSON-LD
,
linked data
JSON extension
- MathML
, mathematical notation markup language
- Multimodal Architecture and Interfaces
- Web Ontology Language
- P3P
- PROV
[34]
- Resource Description Framework
, family of metadata standards
- Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition
- Simple Knowledge Organization System
- Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language
- SOAP
- SPARQL
- Speech Recognition Grammar Specification
- Speech Synthesis Markup Language
- Scalable Vector Graphics
, vector image format
- VoiceXML
- WAI-ARIA
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
- WebAssembly
, portable binary format and assembly language
- WebDriver
, a platform based on language-neutral wire protocol to remotely instruct the behavior of web browsers
[35]
- WebRTC
,
real-time communication
standard
- Web Services Description Language
- WebXR Device API
[36]
- XForms
- XHTML
- XHTML+Voice
- XML
- XML Events
- XML Information Set
- XML Schema
- XPath
- XQuery
- XSL Formatting Objects
- XSLT
- XTiger
[37]
[38]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"W3C Invites Chinese Web Developers, Industry, Academia to Assume Greater Role in Global Web Innovation"
. W3C. 20 January 2013
. Retrieved
30 November
2013
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Current Members & Testimonials"
. World Wide Web Consortium.
Archived
from the original on 5 March 2023
. Retrieved
5 March
2023
.
- ^
a
b
"About us"
.
W3C
.
Archived
from the original on 21 March 2022
. Retrieved
21 March
2022
.
- ^
R, Valsala (1 July 2022).
"Can we imagine life without the World Wide Web?"
.
Deccan Herald
. Retrieved
15 July
2022
.
- ^
Michael Blanding, "
The Past and Future of Kendall Square
",
MIT Technology Review
August 18, 2015.
- ^
"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
.
- ^
Jacobs, Ian (June 2009).
"W3C Offices"
. Archived from
the original
on 6 September 2009
. Retrieved
14 September
2009
.
- ^
"Beihang University Becomes Newest Institution to Host W3C"
.
W3C
. 20 January 2013.
- ^
Pedersen, Erik,
"Technology & Engineering Emmys Winners Unveiled"
.
Deadline.
April 25, 2022.
- ^
"W3C re-launched as a public-interest non-profit organization"
.
W3C
. 31 January 2023
. Retrieved
3 August
2023
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
"Standards"
. World Wide Web Consortium
. Retrieved
5 March
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
"Development Process"
. W3C. 12 April 2005
. Retrieved
3 April
2012
.
- ^
"ERCIM ? the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics"
.
ercim.eu
. Retrieved
21 September
2021
.
- ^
"Facts about W3C"
. W3C
. Retrieved
2 March
2023
.
- ^
"W3C people list"
. W3C
. Retrieved
3 April
2012
.
- ^
"Dr. Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C CEO"
.
W3C
. Retrieved
21 September
2021
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
"The World Wide Web Consortium: Building a Better Internet"
. Mays Digital. Archived from
the original
on 18 August 2016
. Retrieved
7 November
2015
.
- ^
"Working Groups"
.
W3C
. Retrieved
21 September
2021
.
- ^
"Membership FAQ"
.
W3C
. 2010
. Retrieved
7 August
2010
.
- ^
Jacobs, Ian (2008).
"Join W3C"
. Retrieved
14 September
2008
.
- ^
W3C Membership Fee Calculator
- ^
"World Bank Country Classification"
. Web.worldbank.org
. Retrieved
3 July
2010
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
Scott Gilbertson (12 February 2013).
"DRM for the Web? Say It Ain't So"
.
Webmonkey
. Conde Nast. Archived from
the original
on 24 March 2013
. Retrieved
21 March
2013
.
- ^
"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
.
- ^
Danny O'Brien (October 2013).
"Lowering Your Standards: DRM and the Future of the W3C"
.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
. Retrieved
3 October
2013
.
- ^
Peter Bright
(18 September 2017).
"HTML5 DRM finally makes it as an official W3C Recommendation"
.
Ars Technica
. Retrieved
18 September
2017
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
"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
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
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
.
- ^
Simon Stewart, (Apple); David Burns, (BrowserStack) (24 June 2022).
"WebDriver"
.
WebDriver W3C Working Draft 24 June 2022
. Retrieved
28 June
2022
.
- ^
"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
.
- ^
Sire, Stephane; Vanoirbeek, Christine; Quint, Vincent; Roisin, Cecile (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
.
- ^
Kia, Emilien; Quint, Vincent; Vatton, Irene (15 December 2009).
"XTiger language specification"
.
World Wide Web Consortium
. Retrieved
12 April
2020
.
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