Getting involved with W3C
There are many ways in which you can get involved with W3C's
activities.
Some ways, it is true, are reserved for those whose companies or
organizations
have contributed to the cost of running the Consortium: this is
only fair, as the Consortium is open after all to any organization.
In many critical areas ways in which participation is open to anyone
and the community relies on it.
Hackers
Get into W3C's open source. All code produced by W3C has been "open
source" since W3C started - before the term "open source" was
invented.
Early implementation of new technology in open source makes a huge
difference
to the market, to the credibility of the technology, and to the
ability of people anywhere, in commercial or academic labs
or a thome, to build one each step by experimenting with the next.
If you make a trial implementation of
a Working Draft, you provide invaluable feedback on the
specification, and you get into the edge of the edge.
If you make a definitive contributed implementation of
a standard at any stage in the process, then of ocurse you further test it,
but also you create a platform which allows anyone developing code
a way of picking up the new functionality - in a standard way -
very fast.
Also, by seeding the marketplace with initial implementations,
you put pressure on manufacturers to stick to the spec too, leading
to a more interoperable Web! Check out
For those interested
Large parts of the Consortium web site are open to the public,
including on out technical
reports page
contains not only defined Recommendations, but also Working drafts,
some
of which have email addresses for public comment.
Also, the W3C home page has a list of W3C activities, each of which is
linked
to enough to description to hopefully give you a good idea of what is
going on.
Other material which might be what your looking for includes
We're sorry,but W3C staff cannot answer individual questions about
how to use web software, how to write HTML, and so on.
It's not our job - and there are lots of books and other web
sites which do do this. I'm sure you'd prefer us to spend our time
coordonating the efforts toward a more functional, more interoperable Web!
Conferences
The Consortium generally runs its own "W3C Track" of sessions
a the International World Wide Web conferences. To
find the next one, check the
Come and hear sessions and panels on W3C activities -- and ask good questions!
Experts
The Consortium hosts a bunch of public email lists.
Before contributing to them, please read the archives to get into
synch.
[Notice: Any spam sent to W3C lists is taken as explict acceptance of $10,000
handling fee payable by the spammer, without predjudice to any other
recourse legal or otherwise.]
Serious experts
Now if you have a high level of
expertise in a specific field which is being addressd by a current W3C
working group, then you may wish to be invited to join in
the work of the group as an invited expert.
You do this by contacting the chair or W3C staff contact for the
group.
This status is reserved for those prepared to devote significant
time toward the group's goals. It is not to be taken on
primarily as a learning activity.
We'll need you to sign the invited expert agreement to take care
of IPR issues before you can start.
Thank you!
The Web community is much more than the technical development which
happens around W3C.
From the start, new technology has been craeted and has spread through
the grass roots.
When you work on the core web architecture with W3C, you help millions
of people, reading, writing, dreaming, getting together, doing
business on the Web.
It may seem silly to put a "thank you" here, but you should know that
the Consortium members and staff all realise what a relatively small
role they play, and what a large one all the other groups, includeing
the Internet community at large, play in the whole endeavour.
Tim Berners-Lee
TimBL
Webmaster
$Date: 1998/04/08 21:25:08 $