[W3C News Release] W3C Launches Agile Track to Speed Web Innovation

(Apologies; did not send this yesterday.)

W3C Launches Agile Track to Speed Web Innovation

Community and Business Groups Encourage Broad Participation in
Technology Development

  
http://www.w3.org/
 — 16 August 2011 — To support the rapid evolution of Web technology, W3C announced today an agile track for developers and businesses to create Web technology within W3C's international community of experts. Because innovation can come from organizations as well as individuals, W3C has designed W3C Community Groups to promote diverse participation: anyone may propose a group, and groups start quickly as soon as there is a small measure of peer support. There are no fees to participate and active groups may work indefinitely. Lightweight participation policies let groups decide most aspects of how they work. The larger implementer community benefits from specifications available under royalty-free patent terms and permissive copyright.

  "Innovation and standardization build on each other," said Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. "The stable Web platform provided by W3C has always encouraged innovation. As the pace of innovation accelerates and more industries embrace W3C's Open Web Platform, Community Groups will accelerate incorporation of innovative technologies into the Web."

  With the launch of Community Groups, W3C now offers a smooth path from innovation to open standardization to recognition as an ISO/IEC International Standard. W3C's goals differ at each of these complementary stages, but they all contribute to the organization's mission of developing interoperable standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web.

  W3C also announced today the launch of Business Groups, which provide W3C Members and non-Members a vendor-neutral forum for the development of market-specific technologies and the means to have a powerful impact on the direction of Web standards. W3C staff work with Business Groups to help them achieve their goals and to provide connectivity among groups with shared interests. For instance, a Business Group might compile industry-specific requirements or use cases as input to a W3C Working Group.

  "W3C is now open for crowd-sourcing the development of Web technology," said Harry Halpin, Community Development Lead. "Through these groups, people can reach influential companies, research groups,and government agencies. Developers can propose ideas to the extensive W3C social network, and in a matter of minutes start to build mindshare using W3C's collaborative tools or their own.  Creating a Community or Business Group doesn't mean giving up an existing identity; it means having an easier time promoting community-driven work for future standardization."

Inaugural Community and Business Groups

  The first groups to launch reflect a varied set of interests. W3C announces eight Community Groups:

    * Colloquial Web
    * Declarative 3D for the Web Architecture
    * ODRL Initiative
    * Ontology-Lexica
    * Semantic News
    * Web Education
    * Web Payments
    * XML Performance

  and one Business Group:
    * Oil, Gas and Chemicals

  Learn more About W3C Community and Business Groups.
  
http://www.w3.org/community/about/


About the World Wide Web Consortium

  The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 325 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more information see 
http://www.w3.org/

--------------------
Media Contact

Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>, +1.718.260.9447


--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)    http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs/
Tel:                                      +1 718 260 9447

Received on Wednesday, 17 August 2011 14:46:53 UTC