Status: Oct 12th 2012. Public document.
Abstract: On 29 August 2012, W3C, with partners IEEE, IAB, IETF and ISOC, co-signed the OpenStand principles (Modern Paradigm for Standards). The organizations articulated five principles for standards development that these organizations endorse and practice: Cooperation, Adherence to Principles (due process, consensus, transparency, balance, openness), Collective Empowerment, Availability and Voluntary Adoption.
In this document we evaluate how W3C's current practices and procedures align with the principles.
"Respectful cooperation between standards organizations, whereby each respects the autonomy, integrity, processes, and intellectual property rules of the others."
W3C collaborates with dozens of organizations; see our list of public liaisons. To achieve global interoperability, we work with organizations ranging from SDOs to de jure bodies. With the IETF and others, for example, we announce draft W3C charters on new-work@ietf.org to ensure interoperability between Internet and Web layers.
We are also cooperating closely with de-jure SDOs, by transposing some of our most important specifications into ISO/IEC International Standards, through the PAS procedure (e.g. Web Services, Web Accessibility), with a common goal of limiting fragmentation of global ICT standards on a national or regional basis.
Adherence to the five fundamental principles of standards development:
The W3C Process embodies these points, including consensus as a core value, a one-vote-per-related Members policy in rare cases when voting does occur, review and accountability requirements, and appeal processes (Formal Objections and Membership appeals). W3C has a process for modifying or updating standards. All W3C Members benefit from the same rights and responsibilities.
Consensus is a core value. Groups have review responsibilities to address any substantive issue.
W3C announces draft charters and seeks review through email to public-new-work@w3.org and new-work@ietf.org; such charters are reviewed for at least one month before any approval can take place. For all key standards transitions, the W3C Process requires public documentation of changes, a statement that requirements have been met, evidence of wide review, responses that formally address issues, and any Formal Objections. All W3C drafts are public and comments from the public are welcome at any time. Most Working Groups conduct all their work on public mailing lists, which are archived indefinitely and publicly on the Web. W3C Process includes a heartbeat requirement to ensure that there are public records of progress no longer than every 90 days.
Consensus is a core value: "To promote consensus, the W3C process requires Chairs to ensure that groups consider all legitimate views and objections, and endeavor to resolve them, whether these views and objections are expressed by the active participants of the group or by others (e.g., another W3C group, a group in another organization, or the general public). "
W3C's membership is open to all. W3C technical reports are available publicly at no cost. Almost all technical discussion is archived on public mailing lists. W3C announces publication of all drafts on its home page and invites comments from anyone during the development of a standard and have accountability requirements for all review comments.
Commitment by affirming standards organizations and their participants to collective empowerment by striving for standards that:
While there is no explicit requirement that specifications are defined based on technical merit, W3C process wide review and resolution of dependencies with other groups. The Process also includes a Candidate Recommendation phase which begins when W3C believes the technical report is stable and appropriate for implementation. W3C also includes a Technical Architecture Group (TAG) whose charter to document and build consensus around principles of Web architecture.
W3C also includes a Technical Architecture Group (TAG) whose charter to document and build consensus around principles of Web architecture. These principles enable the creation of technology that satisfies the above expectations. The TAG charter also states "All W3C Working Groups are expected to follow the Architectural Recommendations." W3C has a strong persistence policy for its Recommendations for availability and IPR stability.
W3C's Patent Policy is one of the strongest ways by which W3C promotes global competition. The goal of this policy is to assure that Recommendations produced under this policy can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis, which lowers barriers ot entry to the market.
Some of the principles articulated by the TAG in Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One include orthogonal specifications and extensibility, both of which speak to this principle.
W3C has numerous standards related to accessibility, internationalization, security, and privacy, all indicative of our mission to make the Web available to all.
Standards specifications are made accessible to all for implementation and deployment. Affirming standards organizations have defined procedures to develop specifications that can be implemented under fair terms. Given market diversity, fair terms may vary from royalty-free to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND).
W3C's standards are:
Standards are voluntarily adopted and success is determined by the market.
W3C has no enforcement power. W3C does focus on fulfilling this principle by creating an overall ecosystem supportive of deployment. W3C engages with developers (through talks, conferences, documentation, and training), promotes interoperability (through test suites and tools), and maintains its Recommendations (by tracking errata and revising the Recommendations).