World Wide Web Consortium Must Seize High Ground on Web Standards Earlier, Says New CEO Jeffrey Jaffe

Wade Roush3/10/10Comments (7)Follow @wroush

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the whole thing. I think that is going to be of value in and of itself.

Underneath that, as a second point, the stakeholders of any standards organization have a level of urgency, but there is a balance between urgency and speed and getting it right. I hope that I’ll be able to get that across and make sure we find mechanisms to streamline things as necessary. W3C has already started doing some of that with their innovation groups. So, I think that is an area where I would like to focus and improve—the urgency being the main point.

The third area which relates closely to my recent experience at Novell is that Novell is very active in Linux and open source. With open source we are seeing new ways of exciting developers and getting participation from developers, from the creative people who work all over the place, with their different ideas and different rhythms. That needs to be a continuing priority for W3C, getting top engagement from the most creative people in our industry.

And then finally, I would say that it’s got to be useful that I’ve got a host of contacts in the computer industry through IBM, in the telecommunications industry through what is know Alcatel Lucent, and in the software industry from Novell. And it goes beyond those, because in those industries companies are always working together.

X: You’ve said that finishing standards-setting work on HTML 5 is a high priority. Exactly why is HTML 5 important?

JJ: One of the core values of W3C, as you know, is a very open, transparent process and very open standards. There isn’t a requirement that everything on the Web has got to be open—people can write proprietary applications, that’s fine. But the core infrastructure of the Web needs to be open, and no one disputes the fact that HTML and HTML 5 are components of the core infrastructure of the Web. So it’s vital that it should be open. To my point earlier, we feel urgency about everything, and that needs to be balanced with an open process that gets to hear from all stakeholders. As soon as I’ve been here a little bit longer I’ll be able to have a more specific answer.

X: Do you have thoughts about specific ways to speed up the standards-making process?

JJ: I think one of the critical pieces in any standards process is getting to what I would characterize as early convergence, or quick convergence. The idea is to identify early on what are the next big things that need to be standardized. The earlier you get the stakeholders together, the greater the likelihood that you are going to be able to rapidly get to conclusions. So I believe that a priority for standards organizations in general and for W3C in particular is not only to work on the known standards but to have a very robust on-deck circle, to be able to have visibility into what’s the next big thing. W3C has enough stakeholders—hundreds of companies with thousands of people—that it’s critical, looking forward, that we’re extremely open, seeking out opinions about the next big things, listening, and formulating that into the approaches that we’re going to use. There is no substitute for starting early.

X: In the area of online video in particular, we seem to be at a moment of increasing demand for content, but total fragmentation in the technology marketplace, with companies unsure whether to place their bets on formats backed by Adobe or Apple or Microsoft or on more open standards like H.264. Open video standards are a big part of HTML 5, but is it fair to say that W3C should have started much earlier on standards in this area?

JJ: Looking retrospectively, I would say absolutely. Wherever we see competing technologies not really coming together well, it’s fair to say “Gee, it would have been really great to start earlier.” Look at HTTP and HTML. Those are great examples where … Next Page »

Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/wroush.