W3C
 | |
| Founded: | 1993 |
| Headquarters: | 32 Vassar Street Room 32-G515 |
| Employees: | >100 |
| Website: | W3.org |
| Key People | |
| Jeffrey Jaffe, CEO | |
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where web standards are developed by a hired staff that works together with member organizations and the public. [1]
Overview[edit | edit source]
The W3C was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee. Its mission is to develop protocol and guidelines for the long-term growth of the WWW, in order to bring out its fullest potential. The W3C facilitates participation, involvement, sharing knowledge, and building trust at a global level. It enjoys the support of many important industries and organizations.
W3C Standards[edit | edit source]
W3C laid the foundations for the WWW with the development of HTML in 1997 and XML in 1998.[2]
Since the creation of W3C it has developed more than 90 standards, which they refer to as "Recommendations." Each of these recommendations must pass through a set of stages which is known as the '"Recommendation Track" which involves: review, reformulation, and finally implementation.[3]
Each recommendation was developed by working groups which consist of up to 15 W3C members who have experience in the applicable field.
A recommendation is steered by a Working Group, and must pass through the following steps (also called maturity levels):
- Working Drafts, which are fluid works-in-progress published by Working Groups to gain input from the wider community.
- Last Call for Working Draft, which notifies interested parties of the WG's intent to move the draft onto the next stage. It is a last call for external input.
- Call for Implementation. At this point, the Working Draft becomes a Candidate for Recommendation, and is reviewed for implementation as a standard.
- Call for review of proposed recommendation. At this stage, the Candidate Recommendation becomes a Proposed Recommendation, and the WG must seek a final endorsement from the Committee. Without this endorsement, the project reverts back to the Working Draft stage for further development.
- W3C Recommendation. At this stage, the W3C feels confident enough to recommend that individuals and organizations implement standard technology in their work.
W3C members[edit | edit source]
The overall Director of W3C is Tim Berners-Lee, who is part of a management team that is supported by staff members and various interns.[4]
As of 2011, the W3C had 326 members.[5] Its members are non-profit organizations, governmental entities, other types of businesses and individuals. In order to become a W3C member an application must be submitted, which will be reviewed and approved by W3C. [6]
In order to be accessible to a wide range of international organizations, W3C offers membership fees on a sliding scale dependent on annual revenue, type of business, and the location of the organization's headquarters.[7]