W3C Liaisons With Other Organizations

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the organization where core Web technologies are developed. There are many other organizations developing standards for the Internet or the Web in general, and in some cases, their activities may overlap with W3C activities. To help coordinate the development of the Web, W3C engages in liaisons with numerous organizations after careful consideration of the costs and benefits.

Table of Liaisons/Partnerships

3GPP · AccessBoard · AILF · ATIA · Apache · BSI · CEN · DATSCG · DCMI · Daisy · EuroAccessibility · ETSI · FSTC · GFSI · I3A · ICANN · ICC · IEEE · IETF · IGF · IGF-DCOS · IMS · INCITS · IPTC · ISO · ITIC · ITU · IW3C2 · JIS · Liberty Alliance · MPIC· NIST · OASIS· OGF · OMA · OMG · OeBF · Open GIS Consortium · SMPTE · TOG · Unicode · UN/CEFACT · Unicode · VoiceXML · WAB-Cluster · WASP · Web3D · WS-I

Each entry in the following table of partnerships (active or not) includes:

• the name of the organization, linked to its homepage. In addition, formal agreements are listed here.
• the W3C activities or technologies affected by the liaison
• one or several contact names within W3C
• zero or more liaison contact names, included with permission of the liaison contacts. If this information becomes outdated please alert the W3C contact.

For more information about a particular liaison, please refer to the contact page for the listed individual(s). For more information about W3C liaisons, or if you are interested in creating a new liaison, please contact the W3C Communications Team at w3t-comm@w3.org. See also the section of the W3C Process Document on liaisons.

Considerations When Establishing a Liaison

Liaisons take a variety of forms, ranging from participation by an individual in a group, to membership agreements, to formal agreements through Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or other contracts. While W3C supports liaisons with other groups, the organization and development of these liaisons (formal or informal) requires time and resources. W3C's decision to pursue a liaison with a Partner is ultimately based on the perceived costs and benefits to W3C. Important considerations include:

• Will both organizations make available to each other all information pertinent to the joint effort?
• Will both organizations ensure public distribution of intermediate and final versions of technical reports?
• Will both organizations publish specifications and results using open standards (e.g., XHTML, SVG, PNG, Unicode)? W3C archives its work and so requires that formats used be established standards that are well-documented and usable without the purchase of proprietary software. Such formats are more likely to be interpretable by posterity.
• Will both organizations respect the confidentiality of sensitive information? Willingness by both parties to protect such information fosters trust and may allow Working Groups to get work done more quickly. However, those involved should not lose sight of the ultimate goal of open and public specifications.
• Will both organizations disclose any patent, copyright, and other IPR claims related to the joint effort? What happens when the Partner does not share the same IPR policies as W3C? When it's more strict or more loose? Is disclosure the minimum? How will the organization address patents as part of filling out the charter?
• Will both organizations coordinate all public statements and press releases related to the joint effort?
• Will both organizations encourage peer review at appropriate/documented milestones so as to ensure compatibility? Agree to negotiate changes deemed necessary by reviewers? Agree to solicit and respond to comments made during periods of public review?
• Will both organizations reach decisions by consensus and document objections when consensus is not possible?
• Will Members of both organizations commit to representing the parent organizations in work related to the joint effort?
• What copyright and distribution policies will govern deliverables? Will the publications be available according to the W3C Document License? Will software be available according to the W3C Software Notice and License?

W3C may choose not to pursue a liaison with an organization that has selective or arbitrary membership policies that serve only to benefit pre-existing or dominant members.

Per the W3C Process Document, all liaisons must be coordinated by the Team due to requirements for public communication; patent, copyright, and other IPR policies; confidentiality agreements; and mutual membership agreements.