Media Advisory: W3C to become a public-interest non-profit organization

Dear friends of W3C,

Today the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced it is set to pursue 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The launch as a new legal entity in January 2023 preserves the core mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web by developing open standards with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community.

Our standards work will still be accomplished in the open, under the W3C Process Document and royalty-free W3C Patent Policy, with input from the broader community. Decisions will still be taken by consensus. 

Our transition to launch the legal entity includes concrete stages – adoption of Bylaws: filing for 501(c)(3) non-profit status; election and seating of a Board of Directors – all to transfer staff, Member contracts, and operations to the new structure.

As W3C was created to address the needs of the early web, our evolution to a public-interest non-profit is not just to continue our community effort, but to mature and grow to meet the needs of the web of the future.

Read more at the press release (copied as text below) at: https://www.w3.org/2022/06/pressrelease-w3c-le.html.en

Please feel free to contact me if you have any quesitons or would like to schedule an interview at <w3t-pr@w3.org>.

Thank you.

best,
Amy van der Hiel
W3C Media Relations Coordinator
 
_________________________________________
 
   [1]W3C Media Advisory  

      [1] 
https://www.w3.org/


        W3C to become a public-interest non-profit organization

By incorporating, W3C is replacing its original Hosted model and
boosting its crucial web standards work
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   [2]Translations | [3]W3C Press Release Archive
     __________________________________________________________

      [2] 
https://www.w3.org/Press/Releases-2022#w3c-le

      [3] 
https://www.w3.org/Press/


   [4]
https://www.w3.org/
 — 28 June 2022 — The World Wide Web
   Consortium is set to pursue 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The
   launch as a new legal entity in January 2023 preserves the core
   mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web by developing
   open standards with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and
   the international community.

      [4] 
https://www.w3.org/


   "We designed the W3C legal entity in a way that keeps our core
   unchanged," said Dr. Jeff Jaffe, W3C CEO. "Our values-driven
   work remains anchored in the royalty-free W3C Patent Policy,
   and the W3C Process Document where we enshrined dedication to
   security, privacy, internationalization and web accessibility.
   W3C and its Members will continue to play a fundamental role in
   making the web work for billions of people."

  Understanding the historical Hosted model

   When Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee founded W3C in 1994, he
   created a community of peers. Web technologies were already
   moving so quickly that it was critical to assemble a single
   organization to coordinate web standards. Tim accepted the
   offer from MIT, who had experience with consortia, to host W3C.
   He required from the start that W3C have a global footprint.

   Within a few years, MIT (USA), Keio University (Japan), Inria
   (France, transitioning to ERCIM in 2003) completed agreements
   to provide W3C legal hosting. We added in 2013 Beihang
   University (China). The four partnered administratively in a
   Hosted model to manage W3C Members and provide employment of
   the global W3C staff working under the direction of W3C’s
   management.

   At the operational level, which is not changing, W3C Members
   are bound together for our technical work, united around the
   W3C’s mission to lead the web to its full potential by creating
   open standards that ensure that the web remains open,
   accessible, internationalized, secure, and interoperable for
   everyone around the globe.

  Building on 28 years of expertise

   Under the Hosted model we were able to make significant changes
   for the better: launched free and public Community Groups for
   pre-standardization, improved our process and patent policy,
   liberalized our document license, adopted living
   Recommendations, broadened our focus to industry, established
   liaisons with IETF, WHATWG, ISO.

   The Web Consortium has a track record of delivering globally
   recognized standards, including the foundational HTML and CSS
   upon which the web is built. The social and economic value of
   what W3C and its Members have produced cannot be overstated:
   hundreds of open standards have powered the creation of 2
   billion websites, the emergence of transformative phenomena
   like social media, e-commerce, video on the web,
   videoconferencing. W3C’s work enables people with disabilities
   to access the web, supports websites in languages all around
   the world, improves web security through strong authentication.
   W3C standards may be used by anyone, at no cost.

   Yet, there are imperatives to elevate W3C to a level where it
   rises up stronger.

  Greater means, stronger governance are fueling the need for change

   We need a structure where we meet at a faster pace the demands
   of new web capabilities and address the urgent problems of the
   web. The W3C Team is small, bounded in size, and the Hosted
   model hinders rapid development and acquisition of skills in
   new fields.

   We need to put governance at the center of the new organization
   to achieve clearer reporting, accountability, greater diversity
   and strategic direction, better global coordination. A Board of
   Directors will be elected with W3C Member majority. It will
   include seats that reflect the multi-stakeholder goals of the
   Web Consortium. We anticipate to continue joint work with
   today’s Hosts in a mutually beneficial partnership.

  Preserving our world-class standards development process

   As important as all these points are, they only represent a
   change to the shell around W3C. The proven standards
   development process must and will be preserved.

   W3C processes promote fairness, enable progress. Our standards
   work will still be accomplished in the open, under the W3C
   Process Document and royalty-free W3C Patent Policy, with input
   from the broader community. Decisions will still be taken by
   consensus. Technical direction and Recommendations will
   continue to require review by W3C Members – large and small.
   The Advisory Board will still guide the community-driven
   Process Document enhancement. The Technical Architecture Group
   will continue as the highest authority on technical matters.

  Next steps

   Our transition to launch the legal entity includes concrete
   stages – adoption of Bylaws: filing for 501(c)(3) non-profit
   status; election and seating of a Board of Directors – all to
   transfer staff, Member contracts, and operations to the new
   structure.

   As W3C was created to address the needs of the early web, our
   evolution to a public-interest non-profit is not just to
   continue our community effort, but to mature and grow to meet
   the needs of the web of the future.

About the World Wide Web Consortium

   The mission of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is to lead
   the Web to its full potential by creating technical standards
   and guidelines to ensure that the Web remains open, accessible,
   and interoperable for everyone around the globe. W3C well-known
   standards HTML and CSS are the foundational technologies upon
   which websites are built. W3C works on ensuring that all
   foundational Web technologies meet the needs of civil society,
   in areas such as accessibility, internationalization, security,
   and privacy. W3C also provides the standards that undergird the
   infrastructure for modern businesses leveraging the Web, in
   areas such as entertainment, communications, digital
   publishing, and financial services. That work is created in the
   open, provided for free and under the groundbreaking W3C Patent
   Policy.

   W3C's vision for "One Web" brings together thousands of
   dedicated technologists representing more than 400 [5]Member
   organizations and dozens of industry sectors. W3C is jointly
   hosted by the [6]MIT Computer Science and Artificial
   Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the United States, the
   [7]European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
   (ERCIM) headquartered in France, [8]Keio University in Japan
   and [9]Beihang University in China. For more information see
   [10]
https://www.w3.org/.


      [5] 
https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List

      [6] 
https://www.csail.mit.edu/

      [7] 
https://www.ercim.eu/

      [8] 
https://www.keio.ac.jp/

      [9] 
https://ev.buaa.edu.cn/

     [10] 
https://www.w3.org/


   End Media Advisory

Media Contact

   Amy van der Hiel, W3C Media Relations Coordinator
   <[11]w3t-pr@w3.org>
  mailto:w3t-pr@w3.org

   +1.617.253.5628 (US, Eastern Time)
     __________________________________________________________

   [12]Translations | [13]W3C Press Release Archive

     [12] 
https://www.w3.org/Press/Releases-2022#w3c-le

     [13] 
https://www.w3.org/Press/

Received on Tuesday, 28 June 2022 13:27:28 UTC