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The World Wide Web Consortium ('''W3C''') is an international , the original creator of the World Wide Web and primary author of the URL (Uniform Resource Locator), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) Specification s, the principal technologies that form the basis of the Web. HISTORY In October 1994, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, moved from the European Organization For Nuclear Research (CERN), where the Web originated, and founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) with support from Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), and the European Commission. The consortium 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 incompatibilities 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. It was originally intended that CERN host the European part of W3C. However, CERN wished to focus on particle physics, not information technology. In April 1995 the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique ( INRIA ) became the European host of W3C, joined by Keio University , Japan in September 1996. Starting in 1997, W3C created regional Offices around the world; as of October 2005 it has fifteen World Offices covering Australia, Benelux, Finland, Germany and Austria, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Morocco, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. In January 2003, the European host was transferred from INRIA, a French computer science laboratory, to ERCIM , which represents European national computer science laboratories. RECOMMENDATIONS AND CERTIFICATIONS In accord with the W3C Process Document, a Recommendation progresses through the maturity levels of ''Working Draft (WD)'', ''Last Call Working Draft'', ''Candidate Recommendation (CR)'', and ''Proposed Recommendation (PR)'', culminating ultimately as a '' 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 third edition). W3C also publishes various kinds of informative ''Notes'' which are not intended to be treated as standards. The Consortium leaves it up to manufacturers to follow the Recommendations. Many of its standards define levels of conformance, which are required for the developers to follow. 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 without the risk of creating more drawbacks for the community than benefits. ADMINISTRATION The Consortium is jointly administered by the MIT Computer Science And Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) 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 fifteen 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. SEE ALSO
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