1. Presented by: Pam DonohueKevin Field Wes JohnstonJessica Sayers

2. What is W3C? Tim Berners-Lee is the Director and Inventor of the World Wide Web. Invented in 1989 (Not the inventor of the internet) Primary author of HTTP, HTML, XML, and URL specifications “The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards” Mission: To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web Since 1994, published over 90 standards called the W3C Recommendations

3. What does W3C do? W3C designs and promotes interoperable open (non- proprietary) formats and protocols to avoid the market fragmentation of the past Most work revolves around the standardization of web technologies Organizations join W3C to work and exchange ideas and participate in a standards body to keep up with the latest technology and observe market fluctuations on the web One of W3C's primary goals is to make the benefits on the web available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability

4. W3C Operations Operations are supported with dues, research grants, and other sources of public and private funding Operations are jointly administered by MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in the U.S., the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) in France, and Keio University in Japan. Includes 15 regions around the world The W3C offices work with their regional Web communities to promote W3C technologies in local languages, broaden W3C's geographical base, and encourage international participation in W3C Activities

5. The W3C Technology Stack The Web is an application built on top of the Internet

6. Who listens to them? ANYONE who has a vested interest in the internet The W3C sets guidelines and suggestions to make the web available for all users “By publishing open (non-proprietary) standards for Web languages and protocols, W3C seeks to avoid market fragmentation and thus Web fragmentation.”

7. W3C members As of February 2006 the W3C has 402 members Memberships are welcome to any company willing to pay an annual membership fee Contributions are also welcomed Contributors are listed on the W3C website

8. W3C membership distribution by commercial sector

9. W3C membership distribution by country

10. Membership Fees

11. Current Members The members are a fairly diverse group of companies and organizations Likely suspects including Microsoft, Boeing, Sun Microsystems, and IBM are currently members, as are a number of smaller companies with less recognizable names

12. …more members A-SIT Academia Sinica ACCESS Co., Ltd. ACORD Corporation Adobe Systems Inc. Adomo, Inc. Afilias Limited Agfa-Gevaert N. V. AgileDelta, Inc. Agrawal Consultants Albert-Ludwigs-Universität-Freiburg, Institut für Informatik Albert-Ludwigs-Universität-Freiburg, Institut für Informatik Alcatel Altova GmbH Alzheimer Research Forum Foundation Amadeus s.a.s. AME Info FZ LLC America Online, Inc. (AOL) ANEC European Association for the Co- ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation ANEC European Association for the Co- ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation Antenna House, Inc. Apple Computer, Inc. Argo Interactive Ltd Arjuna Technologies Ltd. Asemantics S.R.L. Aspect Communications AT&T

13. Benefits of becoming a member The opportunity to interact and work directly with the leading companies and organizations in the Web world; Right to submit proposals ("Member Submissions") to be considered for future Consortium work; Gain public recognition of your organization's contributions through your display of the W3C Member logo Display of organization's logo and testimonial on the W3C home page, viewed by a quarter million visitors each day on average; Knowing why a standard was written a particular way may help you plan for future versions more effectively than your competitors.

14. W3C’s Business Process They have created strict guidelines for the process of creating new web technology standards The purpose is to create fair, progressive, and responsive standards through consensus of the Director, members, and the public

15. Interest in a new topic must be generated. A topic is submitted to the Advisory Committee through a Member Submission A team of experts organizes a workshop and discussions to create more interest After enough interest is generated, the Director announces a new Activity Proposal Process cont..

16. When there is enough support for the new Activity Proposal a team composed of member representatives, invited experts, and W3C representatives begins working on the topic The team creates guidelines that undergo many revisions A technical report is eventually created and reviewed by the W3C Process cont..

17. The members, Director, and the public must come to a consensus regarding the proposed guidelines If there is support from the Advisory committee the new standard is published as a W3C recommendation Process cont..

18. Open Standards In order for the Web to reach its full potential, the most fundamental Web technologies must be compatible with one another and allow any hardware and software used to access the Web to work together W3C refers to this goal as “Web interoperability.” By publishing open (non-proprietary) standards for Web languages and protocols, W3C seeks to avoid market fragmentation and thus Web fragmentation (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/)

19. World Wide Web operation under “Open Standard” AmericaEurope AsiaAfrica WWW Everyone has equal access

20. What if big companies were allowed to write their own Web languages and protocols to the web? We get Web fragmentation MicrosoftYahoo GoogleWWW

21. Web fragmentation would lead to: Multiple private Web systems competing with WWW Micro-WebGoogle-Web Yahoo-WebWWW

22. Other Standard Bodies ISO 9000, ISO 14000 International Organization for Standardization ANSI American National Standards Institute SEI Software Engineering Institute IEEE (I triple E) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

23. Any Questions?