RE: Right Tools RE: Promotion of XHTML

At 19:27 +0000 2003-01-01, fstorr wrote:
>The ISO is an organisation that is known globally.  When I was a kid
>there used to be "kite marks" engraved onto car windows showing that the
>glass met a certain standard.  Every time I walked past a car, I'd check
>for a kite mark and the things were everywhere.  That's what we need for
>the W3C logo and message(s) - but not just on sites; it needs to be in
>software packages and in the manuals that come with them.  It needs to
>be ubiquitous with the Web.

It's called certification and it's another business. :)

some facts about ISO
ISO - http://www.iso.ch/
The ISO has developped around 13000 standards. Their standards are 
not free. You have to pay to access them. The International 
Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a worldwide federation of 
national standards bodies from more than 140 countries, one from each 
country. ISO is a non-governmental organization established in 1947. 
The technical work of ISO is highly decentralized, carried out in a 
hierarchy of some 2 850 technical committees, subcommittees and 
working groups. They have a full time staff of 665 persons (500 in 
member bodies + 165 in Geneva)
ISO Budget = 150,000,000.00 Swiss Franc
	  (=108,410,602.00 US Dollar)

W3C
Staff: 72
W3C Budget = 7,000,000 US Dollar (I think, not exactly sure)
The ISO does not work exactly the same at the organization level than the W3C.


btw in http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/aboutiso/introduction/index.html
	"Standards are documented agreements containing
	 technical specifications or other precise criteria to
	 be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or
	definitions of characteristics, to ensure that materials,
	products, processes and services are fit for their
	purpose."

What W3C also does for the Web.

W3C is a lot younger than ISO, with less resources.

What you were saying about branding comes from the certification 
activity of ISO. This certification activity is not done by ISO 
itself but by other companies which buy to ISO their ability to 
verify the conformity of something against an ISO standard. These 
certifiers sells after that their service to put a seal with the ISO 
brand name on the product, company, etc.
For example, the most well known is ISO 9001.

To discuss certification the list www-qa@w3.org is here for that. :)

-- 
Karl Dubost / W3C - Conformance Manager
           http://www.w3.org/QA/

      --- Be Strict To Be Cool! ---

Received on Wednesday, 1 January 2003 15:46:54 UTC