World Wide Web Consortium
Abbreviation	W3C
Motto	Leading the Web to Its Full Potential
Formation	October 1994
Type	Standards organization
Purpose/focus	Developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web.
Location	MIT/CSAIL in USA, ERCIM in France, Keio University in Japan and many other offices around the world
Region served	Worldwide
Membership	351 member organizations[1]
Director	Tim Berners-Lee
Staff	62
Website	w3.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or W3).

Founded by Tim Berners-Lee at MIT and currently headed by him,^[2] the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the World Wide Web. As of 29 March 2012, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has 351 members.^[1]

W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about the Web.

History[link]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in October, 1994. It was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) with support from the European Commission and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),^[2] which had pioneered the Internet and its predecessor ARPANET.

W3C was created to ensure compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards. Prior to its creation, incompatible versions of HTML were offered by different vendors, increasing the potential for inconsistency between web pages. The consortium was created to get all those vendors to agree on a set of core principles and components which would be supported by everyone.^{[citation needed]}

It was originally intended that CERN host the European branch of W3C; however, CERN wished to focus on particle physics, not information technology. In April 1995 the Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (INRIA) became the European host of W3C, with Keio University becoming the Japanese branch in September 1996. Starting in 1997, W3C created regional offices around the world; as of September 2009, it has eighteen World Offices covering Australia, the Benelux countries (Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium), Brazil, China, Finland, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom and Ireland.^[3]

In January 2003, the European host was transferred from INRIA to the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM), an organization that represents European national computer science laboratories.^{[citation needed]}

Recommendations and Certifications[link]

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In accord with the W3C Process Document, a Recommendation progresses through five maturity levels:^[4]

1. Working Draft
2. Last Call Working Draft
3. Call for implementation
4. Call for Review of a Proposed Recommendation
5. W3C Recommendation (REC).

A Recommendation may be updated by separately published Errata until enough substantial edits accumulate, at which time a new edition of the Recommendation may be produced (e.g., XML is now in its fifth edition). W3C also publishes various kinds of informative Notes which are not intended to be treated as standards.

W3C leaves it up to manufacturers to follow the Recommendations. Many of its standards define levels of conformance, which the developers must follow if they wish to label their product W3C-compliant. Like any standards of other organizations, W3C recommendations are sometimes implemented partially. The Recommendations are under a royalty-free patent license, allowing anyone to implement them.

Unlike the ISOC and other international standards bodies, the W3C does not have a certification program. A certification program is a process which has benefits and drawbacks; the W3C has decided, for now, that it is not suitable to start such a program owing to the risk of creating more drawbacks for the community than benefits.

Administration[link]

The Consortium is jointly administered by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL, located in Stata Center^[5]) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) (in Sophia Antipolis, France), and Keio University (in Japan). The W3C also has World Offices in sixteen regions around the world. The W3C Offices work with their regional Web communities to promote W3C technologies in local languages, broaden W3C's geographical base, and encourage international participation in W3C Activities.

W3C has a relatively small staff team, around 50–60 worldwide recently (as of 2010).^[6] The CEO of W3C as of Dec. 2010 is Jeffrey Jaffe,^[7] former CTO of Novell. The majority of standardization work is done by external experts in W3C's various working groups.

Membership[link]

The domain w3.org attracted at least 11 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.^[8]

The Consortium is governed by its membership. The list of members is available to the public.^[1] Members include businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, governmental entities, and individuals.^[9]

Membership requirements are transparent except for one requirement. An application for membership must be reviewed and approved by W3C. Many guidelines and requirements are stated in detail, but there is no final guideline about the process or standards by which membership might be finally approved or denied.^[10]

The cost of membership is given on a sliding scale, depending on the character of the organization applying and the country in which it is located.^[11] Countries are categorized by the World Bank's most recent grouping by GNI ("Gross National Income") per capita.^[12]

Criticism[link]

Domination by large organizations[link]

The W3C has been criticized as being dominated by larger organizations and thus writing standards that represent their interests. For example, a member of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG)^[13] complained that:

The process is stacked in favour of multinationals with expense accounts who can afford to talk on the phone for two hours a week and jet to world capitals for meetings.^[14]

A similar criticism, responding to large software company complaints about the slow pace of W3C's formulation of XML/web services standards, appeared in Cnet's news.com in 2002:

"I'm not convinced that developers are too bothered," said Edd Dumbill, editor of XML.com, who has worked as a software developer on Web services. "I think developers are being poorly served by the fact that the big companies have dominated the work of the W3C over the last year. The W3C does more or less what its members tell it to. So I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for the complaints of large companies."^[15]

Standards[link]

W3C/IETF Standards (over Internet protocol suite):

References[link]

External links[link]

• W3C homepage (with links to local Offices, and many others)
• About the World Wide Web Consortium
• W3C Technical Reports and Publications
• W3C Process Document
• W3C History
• How to read W3C specs

Air Marshal Norman Walsh OLM, BCR, ESM[1]
165px Air Marshal Norman Walsh
Nickname	Ming
Born	1932/33 Eastern Cape, South Africa
Died	3 August 2010 (aged 77) Queensland, Australia
Allegiance	Southern Rhodesia Rhodesia Zimbabwe
Service/branch	23px Rhodesian Air Force Air Force of Zimbabwe
Years of service	to 1983
Rank	Air Marshal 10px
Commands held	No. 1 Squadron No. 7 Squadron Air Force of Zimbabwe
Awards	Officer of the Legion of Merit Bronze Cross of Rhodesia Exemplary Service Medal
Relations	Merilyn (wife), a son and a daughter

Air Marshal Norman Walsh OLM BCR ESM (1932 or '33 – 3 August 2010) was a senior officer in the Rhodesian Air Force and the first commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe.^[2]

Early life[link]

Norman Walsh was born in 1932 or 33 and attended Queen's College in South Africa where he completed his education in 1949.^[3] Walsh then moved to the neighbouring British colony of Southern Rhodesia and joined the Southern Rhodesian Air Force as an officer cadet.^[4]

Rhodesian Air Force career[link]

Walsh flew Hunters during his earlier Air Force years.^[5] As a middle-ranking officer, he commanded No. 1 Squadron^[6] before switching from fast jet to rotary. He took up command of No. 7 Squadron^[7] in 1968, flying the Alouette III helicopter.^[4] While in command of No. 7 Squadron, Walsh saw action during the guerrilla incursions from Zambia into Rhodesia. He and his squadron were involved in performing helicopter evacuations of wounded Rhodesian infantry, flying in other infantry to attack the guerrillas and providing direct machine gun fire to support ground troops. During these actions, Walsh's helicopter sustained hits from the guerrillas but he was able to continue flying. Walsh was also carried out forward air control duties, directing air strikes from Rhodesian Percival Provosts.^[8] Walsh was awarded the Bronze Cross for conspicuous gallantry shown at this time.^[4]

Walsh finished the 1960s as Officer Commanding the Flying Wing at New Sarum Air Force Station.^[9]

In the 1970s, Walsh held senior appointments in the Rhodesian Air Force. Walsh was the Station Commander at New Sarum from 1975 to 1976.^[9] He was Director of Operations at Air Force headquarters from August 1976 to 1977 during which time Walsh was the senior air force officer directly involved in the execution of Operation Dingo. At the end of his tour he was appointed an officer of the Legion of Merit for service as Director of Operations and other previous command and staff tours.^[10]

From 1978 to 1980, Walsh was Director General Operations and during this time the Rhodesian Air Force was renamed the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Air Force. Walsh was appointed Chief of Staff in 1980.

Commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe[link]

In 1981, after Robert Mugabe had become prime minister, the Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Air Force was renamed the Air Force of Zimbabwe and Mugabe offered command of the air force to Walsh which he accepted.^[11] Walsh's priorities were the recruiting of new personnel from the former guerrilla fighters and replacing outdated aircraft with up-to-date types. Key to this second priority was the acquisition of eight British BAE Hawk jet aircraft to operate in the strike fighter role which were to replace the antiquated Hunters of No. 1 Squadron. In the summer of 1982, Walsh personally led the British Aerospace ferry team which flew the new aircraft from Great Britain to Zimbabwe.^[4]

On 25 July, just 10 days after the Hawks arrived in Zimbabwe, four of the eight ordered Hawks were damaged in a sabotage attack at Thornhill Air Force Base. Saboteurs had cut through the perimeter wire and placed time-delay bombs in the aircraft engines. Eight Hunters and a Cessna aircraft were also attacked. Although it was generally accepted that the saboteurs had been South African special forces, Mugabe ordered his Central Intelligence Organisation agents to arrest the senior air force officers who had been involved in procurement of the Hawks. After torture and beatings, forced confessions were extracted from Walsh's personnel and after nearly a year of international pressure the men brought to trial in the High Court in Harare. Following a lengthy hearing they were all acquitted but were rearrested by Central Intelligence Organisation agents as they left the court building.^[12] It was not until international pressure had been applied for several more weeks, that the officers were released. Walsh resigned his command as soon as he could^[4] and in July 1983 he was replaced by Air Marshal Azim Daudpota who commanded the air force on loan service from Pakistan. Mugabe no longer trusted white officers and actively sought to replace them.^[13]

Later life[link]

Having been able to resign his position, Walsh left Zimbabwe, emigrating with his family to Australia shortly afterwards. Walsh died at his home in Queensland on 3 August 2010 at the age of 77.^[4]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Rhodesian Forces announcement of death
• Daily Telegraph obituary