Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services W3C and European IST Research Jacques Bus, INFSO E2 W3C Interop Tour: Brussels event 3 June 2002

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Some history: EC funded projects WebCore ( ) Aimed to establish W3C in Europe by increasing European membership and building the European W3C team Resulted in a new release of the HTTP protocol (HTTP 1.1), a series of recommendations regarding user interface (HTML 3.2, CSS1, PNG), and recommendations for societal issues such as content labelling (PICS)W3C-LA Aimed to leverage a greater uptake of Web technologies throughout Europe by developing and disseminating shrink-wrapped demonstrators Resulted in a number of demonstrators made available to the public, ISO standardisation of the PNG raster file format and the launching of six European offices

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Ongoing EC funded activity QuestionHow QuestionHow aims at providing the environment necessary for European companies to make mission critical decisions of quality with regard to the emerging Web specifications from W3C. This is being achieved by: – –Aiding the development of mission critical solutions via a range of state-of-the-art tools demonstrating the emerging Web functionality – –Improving outreach and communication channels through an enlarged set of European Offices (4 new offices, incl. in NAS) – –Informing Europe of emerging changes and technologies

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Overview of EC funding to W3C activities WebCore : A World-Wide Web Coordinating Organisation W3C-LA : Leveraging W3C achievements QuestionHow - Quality Engineering Solutions via Tools, information and Outreach for the New Highly enriched Offerings from W3C Total funding: 4.93 M€

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Related IST projects A significant number of IST projects add to W3C standardization process or deploy the standards agreed in W3C A significant number of IST projects add to W3C standardization process or deploy the standards agreed in W3C Examples: Examples: –Diffuse ( Refs and info on standards –Agentlink: network aiming at standardization and development in agent-based systems –ScadaOnWeb: on Web-based supervisory control –Various XML-based applications and work –Consensus: renderer independent mark-up language –On-To-Knowledge

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Related IST projects (cnt.) On-To-Knowledge ( IST ) Delivered the OIL standardisation proposal for the representation of machine accessible semantics of information on the Web Contributed to the definition of DAML+OIL language for ontology based semantics mark-up of web-based information sources The international collaboration between DAML and OIL groups on a Web ontology layer forms part of W3C’s Semantic Web Activity

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Web Interoperability - Risks and Challenges I Infrastructure The diversification of devices and networks is an opportunity for the Web that can be a key convergence glue It also raises risks of fragmentation due to: – –control on access through service interfaces – –non-standard constructs or restrictions to address device specificity – –excessive built-in asymmetry in the infrastructure that would harm the end-to-end quality of the Web

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Web Interoperability - Risks and Challenges II Ignorance or extensions of standards A great number of sites is browser specific or not fully accessible Fueled by the business models rush (cf. Internet keywords) and company strategies One tries to optimally use the Web for ones own purposes, including what fits poorly in its principles (for instance some media and communication channels) W3C was up to now able to maintain the consistency despite these challenges

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Web Interoperability - Risks and Challenges III Intellectual property barriers Illustrated by the RAND licensing policy proposal turmoil But already at work on standards the Web depends upon (domain names localisation in EITF, RDF for the Web itself) Will take new dimensions with DRMs and Web services developments

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Ongoing standards building activities OASIS Web Services Component Model (WSCM) Technical Committee (established in Oct 2001) OMG Web Services Special Interest Group (chartered in Sep 2001) W3C’s initiative on Web Services under the Semantic Web activity The Business Internet Consortium (BIC) has proposed to set up a workgroup on Web Services XML, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI

Technologies and Engineering for Software, Systems and Services Concluding remarks W3C has a crucial role to play in the development of the Web for innovative services and standardization of a service creation environment W3C has a crucial role to play in the development of the Web for innovative services and standardization of a service creation environment Europe should further strengthen its role in the W3C work Europe should further strengthen its role in the W3C work Question-How is an excellent vehicle for stimulating, coordinating and disseminating to support such a European role Question-How is an excellent vehicle for stimulating, coordinating and disseminating to support such a European role