For those interested in this from a nonprofit perspective, I did an interview with W3C’s recently departed CEO, Jeff Jaffe, last year to discuss the organization’s thinking around this move: <a href="https://associationsnow.com/2022/08/world-wide-web-consortium-w3c-nonprofit-transition/" rel="nofollow">https://associationsnow.com/2022/08/world-wide-web-consortiu...</a><p>(Jaffe left the organization in December: <a href="https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/9776" rel="nofollow">https://www.w3.org/blog/news/archives/9776</a>)
So, going off some of the descriptions of how this impacts budgeting and hiring from [0], I feel like this is a bit of a double edged sword:<p>- Under the new model, corporations will be able to more aggressively influence funding, and thus be better able to ensure their interests are represented by new staff members responsible for shaping debate on features.<p>- But under W3C's old model, where budgets and hiring were subject to approval by university liasons, staff couldn't be hired with enough agility and bandwidth to prevent those corporations from being overly aggressive anyways. Perhaps with more non-corporate-aligned humans being able to wholly focus on standardization now, there will be more attention paid to community engagement.<p>I suppose time will tell. When it comes to things like FLoC (now Topics) [1] the privacy implications of having an agile standards board are more important than ever, and may actually have significant impacts on people's physical safety.<p>[0] <a href="https://associationsnow.com/2022/08/world-wide-web-consortium-w3c-nonprofit-transition/" rel="nofollow">https://associationsnow.com/2022/08/world-wide-web-consortiu...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://blog.google/products/chrome/get-know-new-topics-api-privacy-sandbox/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.google/products/chrome/get-know-new-topics-api-...</a>
> <i>Our vision for the future is a web that is truly a force for good ... truly international ... more inclusive ... more respectful of its users ... supports truth better than falsehood, people more than profits, humanity rather than hate ... that works for everyone, because of everyone.</i><p>Ok the question is <i>how</i> to achieve these goals and are those having failed to deliver on these goals for 28 years now according to their own words really the ones to expect solutions from, as W3C, Inc of all things.<p>I'm sorry but all I can see is W3C, Inc. acting in their own interest, for job security. Because core web standards such as HTML are specified elsewhere (basically by random people on github, but mostly Google employees and other financially dependent people who're calling themselves the WHAT working group), leaving only CSS at W3C, and it's a fsking mess. Maybe we can get W3C to work on a formal CSS spec or, better even, a reference browser rather than la-la specs. Though I fail to see how that could be financed under either their old or new funding model.
As important as the Web still is (and with the re-decentralization of the fediverse [0] it may yet get granted a second chance), it has been clear for some time now that the shape of digital life is rapidly being defined by mobile devices where the web is a second class citizen. The original "web-phone" dream has failed [1] and there is a distinct lack of ambition about "open mobile".<p>[0] <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/" rel="nofollow">https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/</a><p>[1] <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-os/basic-features" rel="nofollow">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox-os/basic-...</a>
What I'm learning from this thread today is that there's a lot of animosity to what WHATWG did when Hixie et al rebooted the standard (which at the time was effectively dying and unmaintained).<p>Can anyone explain this politicking and bad blood? Are there some people upset this long after it all happened?
I thought W3C became irrelevant with the advent of WHATWG.<p>In any case, the de-facto standard is whatever Blink does, and there is really no way around that for the foreseeable future.
Here's hoping W3C has a better chance today, with people increasingly aware that the web's commercial interests are largely counter to the interests of a free and open society, and with WHATWG dominated by those very commercial interests.<p>Maybe W3C bungled things with XHMTL 10 years ago, trying to pull the web toward TBL's original vision of something like a giant Wikipedia. But things are very different now, having spent the interim in service to browser vendors and their monetization of control over user data.<p>The mission is arguably much clearer now.
This could turn out to be a very positive development.<p>The press release has more info: <a href="https://www.w3.org/2023/01/pressrelease-w3c-le-launched.html.en" rel="nofollow">https://www.w3.org/2023/01/pressrelease-w3c-le-launched.html...</a>
I'm guessing this means that the legal hurdles with the MIT are over ? <a href="https://mastodon.social/@robin/109524929231432913" rel="nofollow">https://mastodon.social/@robin/109524929231432913</a>
Well, it is supposed to be fine since the web core is still around which nearly all services provided over the net can be performed with, namely with noscript/basic (x)html. You can add <audio> and <video> and pass that to an external mediaplayer until the URL seeking interface is standard and keep web browsers as they are supposed to be: lean/light client.<p>Basic (x)html forms can do wonders.
Is the W3C legitimate? At this point most of their standards are behind the curve. It feels as though the big three are setting the standards, and others (including W3C) are just following along.
So can they now tell us who voted for the DRM changes and why Mozilla failed to resign with the EFF despite going with those changes?<p>This announcement is a magnificent <i>nothing</i>.