W3C Yeah You Know Me

Monday, March 12, 2007

W3C logo It's official, I'm one of a gazillion "invited experts" for the HTML working group of the W3C, the internet standards body that basically created the world wide web as we know it. In theory, it means that I can help shape the HTML standard while it gets ratified by 2010. In reality, I'll probably just be a list lurker and keep in touch with developments while the geniuses hammer stuff out, especially since invited experts only participate in discussions and don't have voting powers.

Either way, I'm super super stoked to be involved in any capacity. I've been evangelizing, giving talks about and using web standards at work for a long time but until now, I've always felt like I was looking from the outside in, trying to divine what the future direction of markup would be from scant information. The W3C has been a bit of a clubby ivory tower, with members sponsored by giant corporate employers that can easily afford the $10,000 annual dues per representative and more importantly, had their own intranet-centric agendas in mind rather than interoperability with the internet at large.

In recent years, the various flavors of HTML have been on the brink of sliding into irrelevance while the standard has been sitting nascent and other markup-based developments have been gaining steam instead, such as MXML for Flex, XAML for Vista, and various types of programming similar to HTML/CSS/Javascript to create widgets for Apple's Dashboard, Google Desktop's Sidebar, Google's personalized home pages, Vista's gadgets, Yahoo! Widget Engine (Konfabulator) and the Netvibes Universal API. This developing ecosystem is very exciting, not the least of which is because the line between web and desktop applications are blurring - developers can start to use the same skill set across multiple mediums, sometimes even at the same time, in the case of Apollo.

Even more importantly, the vacuum of development on the HTML standard spurred the creation of an alternative standards body called the WHATWG in 2004, created specifically to address this need and as a response to the slow development of the official web standards monitored by the W3C. The greatest contributors were Google, Mozilla Foundation, Opera Software and Apple Computer, trying to push forward with HTML innovations and to create a new HTML 5 standard while the HTML 4.01 specification languished, unresponsive to the recent advances in web browsers like Safari, Firefox or Opera.

So in the face of such a furious pace of activity, the W3C has finally decided to fight for its place in the modern web scene by opening up the new working group to the very developers that will end up implementing their work, instead of staying a closed group like they have in the past. Membership as an invited expert is free and open to the public! I don't envy the role of the discussion moderators trying to form consensus but in the end, this can only be a good thing.

The best part is that this happens in the midst of my transferring from one Flash job to another. Irony.

Oops, that last bit was the big news I was hinting at in a previous post. Ok, I'll have more details later :)

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You said: The W3C has been a bit of a clubby ivory tower, with members sponsored by giant corporate employers that can easily afford the $10,000 annual dues per representative and more importantly, had their own intranet-centric agendas in mind rather than interoperability with the internet at large.

Just fixing a few facts. The Member fees are fixed depending on the country of origin and the type of activity.

For example, on April 1st 2007, in India, it would cost for "All other organizations, including not-profit organizations and government agencies.", an annual Membership of 953 USD.

Then it is not a fee by representatives, but a flat fee whatever the number of representatives. It's a fixed price.

Without saying that Invited Experts status exist for a looooong time and gives the possibility for people to participate to W3C when they have really time to contribute. Bjoern Hoerhmann, student, has been part of the CSS WG and Web API WG. He didn't pay any fees.

Every person has an agenda when participating to a technology development. It is the nature of participation to something from individuals to company. For example, the agenda of the WHATWG with an non open invitation only Membership (Apple, Mozilla, Opera - look at their charter) is to push their product, and what they have developed for the past years. Some people will participate because on their agenda, there is the self satisfaction, etc.

Web Forms 2 has been published at W3C, XMLHttpRequest has been published at W3C, Widget is being also developed at W3C. I think you should look at Web API WG. There is also XBL 2 and XUL in the pipe.

The W3C didn't decide to fight, the W3C is the place where the same vendors of the WHATWG (already participating to W3C in others groups, Web API and CSS) can have a larger forum to evolve HTML under the patent policy.

W3C made the possibility to have a very open group to make sure that anyone could positively participate at any scales: Documentation, test cases, reviews, tutorials, etc.

It's cool that you have decided to join.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 10:59 PM :  

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