World Wide Web Consortium
Type	Consortium
Founded	October 1994
Founder	Tim Berners-Lee
Headquarters	MIT/CSAIL in USA ERCIM in France Keio University in Japan and many other offices around the world
Website	www.w3.org -- History

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or W3). A consortium is an association of two or more individuals companies organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities with the objective of participating Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a company enterprise, or Venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee OM KBE FRS FREng FRSA (born 8 June 1955 is an English computer scientist who is credited MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (also CSAIL) is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed by the 2003 The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, or ERCIM, is an organization that aims to foster collaborative work within the European research is a university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan as well as the oldest university in Japan established A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages A standards organization, standards body, standards development organization or SDO is any entity whose primary activities are developing coordinating The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. It is arranged as a consortium where member organizations maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the W3. A consortium is an association of two or more individuals companies organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities with the objective of participating The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. As of February 2008, the W3C had 434 members. ^[1]

W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web.

W3C is headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the first web browser and the primary author of the original URL (Uniform Resource Locator), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) specifications, the principal technologies that form the basis of the World Wide Web. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee OM KBE FRS FREng FRSA (born 8 June 1955 is an English computer scientist who is credited Uniform Resource Locator is an URI which also specifies where the identified resource is available and the protocol for retrieving it Hypertext Transfer Protocol ( HTTP) is a Communications protocol for the transfer of information on the Internet. HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure ^[2]

History

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in October, 1994. HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure HTML has been in use since 1991, but HTML 40 (December 1997 was the first standardized version where international characters were given reasonably complete treatment Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a collection of technologies used together to create interactive and animated Web sites by using a combination of a static Markup In HTML and XHTML, a font face or font family is the typeface that is applied to some text An HTML editor is a software application for creating Web pages Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any Text editor, specialized In Computing, an HTML element indicates structure in an HTML document and a way of hierarchically arranging content HTML Series The W3C HTML standard includes support for Client-side scripting. A layout engine, or rendering engine, is software that takes marked up content (such as HTML, XML, image files etc Quirks mode refers to a technique used by some Web browsers for the sake of maintaining backwards compatibility with Web pages designed for older browsers instead of Web style sheets are a form of Separation of presentation and content for Web design in which the markup (i Web pages authored using hypertext markup language ( HTML) may contain multilingual text represented with the Unicode universal character set. Web colors are Colors used in designing web pages and the methods for describing and specifying those colors The Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, or XHTML, is a The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of Web browsers Please see the individual products' articles for further information The following tables compare HTML compatibility and support for a number of Layout engines Please see the individual products' articles for further information The following tables compare support of HTML 5 differences from HTML 4 for a number of Layout engines The specification is still a working draft not The following tables compare deprecated and proprietary HTML tags and attributes compatibility and support for a number of Layout engines Please see the individual products' articles for The following tables compare XHTML compatibility and support for a number of Layout engines Please see the individual products' articles for further information The European Organization for Nuclear Research (Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire known as CERN It was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) -- which had pioneered the Internet -- and the European Commission. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new Technology The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks The European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) is the executive branch of the European Union.

W3C was created to ensure compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards. Prior to its creation, incompatible versions of HTML were offered by different vendors, increasing the potential for inconsistency between web pages. The consortium was created to get all those vendors to agree on a set of core principles and components which would be supported by everyone.

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 Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (INRIA) became the European host of W3C, with Keio University becoming the Japanese branch in September 1996. The Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique ( INRIA) ( English National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) is The Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique ( INRIA) ( English National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control) is is a university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan as well as the oldest university in Japan established Starting in 1997, W3C created regional offices around the world; as of October 2007 it has sixteen World Offices covering Australia, the Benelux countries (the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and Belgium), China, Finland, Germany and Austria, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Korea, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands Luxembourg (Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg Grand-Duché de Luxembourg Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small Landlocked country in Western Europe, bordered by The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɾlənd/ Éire) is the third largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea and often referred to as Korea ( Korean: 대한민국 tɛː Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. Morocco (المغرب "al-Maghrib" officially the Kingdom of Morocco (المملكة المغربية is a country located in North Africa The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa Spain () or the Kingdom of Spain (Reino de España is a country located mostly in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located

In January 2003, the European host was transferred from INRIA to the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM), an organization that represents European national computer science laboratories. The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, or ERCIM, is an organization that aims to foster collaborative work within the European research The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, or ERCIM, is an organization that aims to foster collaborative work within the European research

Recommendations and certifications

In accord with the W3C Process Document, a Recommendation progresses through five maturity levels:

1. Working Draft (WD)
2. Last Call Working Draft
3. Candidate Recommendation (CR)
4. Proposed Recommendation (PR)
5. W3C Recommendation (REC)

A Recommendation may be updated by separately published Errata until enough substantial edits accumulate, at which time a new edition of the Recommendation may be produced (e. A W3C Recommendation is the final stage of a Ratification process of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C working group concerning the Standard. g. , XML is now in its fourth edition). Don't change "Extensible" W3C also publishes various kinds of informative Notes which are not intended to be treated as standards.

W3C leaves it up to manufacturers to follow the Recommendations. Many of its standards define levels of conformance, which the developers must follow if they wish to label their product W3C-compliant. Like any standards of other organizations, W3C recommendations are sometimes implemented partially. The Recommendations are under a royalty-free patent license, allowing anyone to implement them.

Unlike the ISOC and other international standards bodies, the W3C does not have a certification program. The Internet Society or ISOC is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards education and policy A certification program is a process which has benefits and drawbacks; 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.

Administration

The Consortium is jointly administered by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) (in Sophia Antipolis, France), and Keio University (in Japan). MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (also CSAIL) is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed by the 2003 The European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, or ERCIM, is an organization that aims to foster collaborative work within the European research Sophia Antipolis is a Technology park northwest of Antibes and southwest of Nice, France. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. is a university located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan as well as the oldest university in Japan established For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. The W3C also has World Offices in sixteen 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.

Membership

The Consortium is governed by its membership, which comprises about 400 organizations. The list of members is available to the public. ^[3] Members include only businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, and governmental entities. There is no provision for individual membership.

Membership requirements are transparent except for one requirement. An application for membership must be reviewed and approved by 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.

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. ^[4] Countries are categorized by the World Bank's most recent grouping by GNI ("Gross National Income") per capita. ^[5]

Fees Schedule for 2007

European, Middle Eastern, and African organizations pay dues denominated in Euros, as follows:

• The fee charged to For-profit companies with annual gross revenues exceeding €51,000,000, was €65,000, regardless of location.
• The fee charged to for-profit companies with annual gross revenues under €51,000,000 but greater than the "Other organization" cap (see below) was €6,500, regardless of location.
• Smaller and non-profit organizations located in lower GNI countries enjoy two price advantages:
  • In High Income Countries (HIC) such as France and Israel , non-profit organizations and for-profit organizations with AGR under €51,000,000 are charged €6,500.
  • In Upper Middle Income Countries (UMC) such as Poland and South Africa, nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies with AGR under €30,600,000 pay €3,900.
  • In Lower Middle Income Countries (LMC) such as Ukraine and Jordan, nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies with AGR under €15,300,000 pay €1,950.
  • In Lower Income Countries (LIC) Pakistan and Kenya, nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies with AGR under €7,650,000 pay €975.

Similar scales apply to dues denominated in yen for some Asian countries, and US dollars for all others.

Criticism

Domination by large organizations

Many reputable sources have criticized the W3C as being dominated by larger organizations and thus writing standards that represent their interests. For example, a member of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG)^[6] complained that:

The process is stacked in favour of multinationals with expense accounts who can afford to talk on the phone for two hours a week and jet to world capitals for meetings. ^[7]

A similar criticism, responding to large software company complaints about the slow pace of W3C's formulation of XML/web services standards, appeared in Cnet's news. com in 2002:

"I'm not convinced that developers are too bothered," said Edd Dumbill, editor of XML. com, who has worked as a software developer on Web services. "I think developers are being poorly served by the fact that the big companies have dominated the work of the W3C over the last year. The W3C does more or less what its members tell it to. So I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for the complaints of large companies. "^[8]

Lack of Formality

Another problem related to W3C specifications is their lack of semantic formality. Despite the fact that those recommendations contain a detailed concrete syntax for the languages they specify (eg XML or XPath), they lack a formal interpretation of the syntactic constructs, which is only given by explanations written in English. This explanations are sometimes ambiguous and difficult to read. These problems would be detected and avoided if it was developed a (denotational) semantics. Moreover, a formal semantics gives deeper insight to the meaning of a language, allowing people to prove properties and even aiding the development of future versions of the language. This approach was suggested by P. Wadler (for a draft of path specifications on XSL, that eventually evolved to XPath). Unfortunately, this approach was not adopted by the W3C working groups, that still maintain the English language style.

Standards

W3C/IETF Standards (over Internet protocol suite):     

See also

• Device Independence
• Mobile Web
• Request for Comments
• Semantic Web
• W3C Markup Validation Service
• WAI
• Web page
• Web server
• Web services
• Web template
• XMLHttpRequest

References

External links

• W3C homepage (with links to local Offices, and many others)
• About the World Wide Web Consortium
• W3C Technical Reports and Publications
• W3C HTML homepage
• W3C Process Document
• World Wide Web (German)
• W3C Quality Assurance Specifications Guidelines
• W3C Sites
• W3C Markup Validation Service
• A tutorial on the W3C and the current standards, from W3Schools.com