"The W3C Newsletter is every Member's link to the latest Consortium
news, events, and action items."
The Newsletter is a biweekly supplement to the [5]W3C Member Web Site,
available off the home page, by email, and even by fax upon request.
It is an especially critical channel for reaching [6]W3C Advisory
Committee Members with meeting announcements and official business.
_The Newsletter should be distributed widely within Member
Organizations ONLY. _
If you are reading this newsletter on paper, be aware that many links
to referenced material are found in the online version at
[7]http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Member/Newsletter/970221.html.
_________________________________________________________________
_NEWS _
_CAPTION:_
[8]EDITOR'S CORNER
[9]This issue's Highlights
[10]NEWS BRIEFS _GENERAL INTEREST_
1. [11]"Reference Code" vs. "Sample Code"
2. [12]Yggdrasil Computing to Support W3C Arena Browser
3. [13]Working Groups Replace HTML ERB
4. [14]Audio Tapes from DCOM/CORBA Symposium Available
_TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY_
1. [15][16]Web Accessibility Initiative Briefing Package Released
_ARCHITECTURE_
1. [17]Latest Jigsaw Package Released to Public
2. [18]HTTP/1.1 Performance Analysis Sparks Public Interest
3. [19]Briefing Package on Synchronized Multimedia Available
4. [20]Libwww 5.1 Update Released to Members
_USER INTERFACE_
1. [21]W3C Sponsors Multilingualism and Internationalization Panel at
WWW6
2. [22]Working Draft on Design Issues for HTML Forms Available
[23]FEATURES [24]W3C Gearing Up for Sixth International Web Conference
[25]UPCOMING EVENTS
1. [26]Action Items and Deadlines
2. [27]News of Future W3C Events
[28]PARTICIPATION
OPPORTUNITIES
_CALLS FOR PARTICIPATION_
1. [29]Working Group on Synchronized Multimedia
2. [30]Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
_________________________________________________________________
_OTHER CONTENTS_
_CAPTION:_
[31]DEPARTMENTS _MEMBER & STAFF UPDATES_
* [32]W3C Adds Technical Writing Support
* [33]Consortium Membership
* [34]The W3C Global Team
_ACCESSING CONSORTIUM RESOURCES_
* [35]W3C Member Web Site Access
* [36]Current Software Releases
* [37]Newsletter, Press Release, and Web Journal Archives
* [38]Technical Reports & Publications
_POLICIES_
* [39]Press releases about W3C, and submissions to W3C
* [40]Using the W3C Member Logo
* [41]Relationships with other organizations
_________________________________________________________________
_EDITOR'S CORNER_
This issue's Highlights
_by __[42]Thomas J. Greene_
The theme of this issue is relationships and participation of W3C in
the upcoming WWW6. For example [43]the feature article, the article
concerned with [44]Multilingualism and Internationalization and
[45]the item about performance are all concerned with [46]WWW6. Notice
that in addition to the direct involvement with the conference,
[47]several meetings concerning W3C matters[48] are planned around the
conference.
Items in this issue requesting action by W3C Advisory members are:
* Calls for Participation
* Meetings registration
Newsletter mailing:
Beginning next issue, an email note with the_ _new _newsletter -URL
only _will be sent to the addresses used by people who have
[49]applied for and obtained a personal account for the member site.
For the present, the_ newsletter-text version _is mailed to a
newsletter list. This list includes all Advisory Committee Members and
some others who have expressed interest in the past. A "cleanup the
mailing lists " project is underway. Over the next several weeks all
AC Members will be encouraged to create a mail distribution list at
their organization and register the address of the list for use in
mailing this _newsletter-text version_. This action will serve two
purposes:
* establish and maintain a channel of contact with between AC
members and people
in their organization interested in W3C issues
* increase newsletter distribution within the member companies
_________________________________________________________________
_NEWS BRIEFS_
GENERAL INTEREST
1. "Reference Code" vs."Sample Code"
_by [50]Tim Berners-Lee_
At the last Advisory Committee meeting, it was pointed out that the
term "reference code" can carry the implication that it, rather than
any document, is to be taken as the definitive specification of a
protocol. This is clearly not the intention of code produced by the
W3C. The principle reasons for the Consortium, or its Members and
Working Groups, to produce code are to test new protocols, demonstrate
their usefulness, and demonstrate the ease or otherwise of
implementation.
The emphasis in practice varies from one activity to another: for
PICS, it was important to demonstrate what the user interface could
look like; for HTTP 1.1, it was important to test the performance, and
for HTML tables it was important to demonstrate that it is practical
to parse and format tables on the fly. Anyway, we'll be using the term
"sample code" in future, as this seems to give a better indication of
the role it is intended to play.
2. Yggdrasil Computing to Support W3C Arena Browser
_by [51]Hekon W. Lie_
Arena has served as a testbed browser for W3C's work in HTML and HTTP.
Tables, background images and style sheets are among the features that
have been experimentally implemented in Arena before being supported
by commercial Web software. During 1996, Amaya has taken on the role
as the W3C testbed environment and we no longer have the resources to
maintain Arena.
The World Wide Web Consortium [W3C] has approved Yggdrasil Computing
to coordinate future development of Arena. Under the agreement,
Yggdrasil will undertake new development and provide support to the
developer community on the internet. Yggdrasil will issue regular
releases, provide a centralized FTP archive and web site, integrate
contributed bug fixes and enhancements, create mailing lists for
developers and users, and facilitate widespread use of Arena by
others.
New releases of the Arena web browser are accessible on the internet
under the URL [52]ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/pub/dist/web/arena and at
[53]http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/arena.html
3. Working Groups Replace HTML ERB
_by [54]Vincent Quint_
As described at the last AC meeting, it was planned to split the HTML
ERB into three Working Groups:
* HTML (including Maths)
* CSS (including Fonts)
* Document Object Model (DOM)
This division is now in progress: new charters are being written.
Provisional versions of the [55]HTML group charter and the [56]CSS
group charter are available on line. Since the last issue of the
Newsletter, the three new groups have held their first
teleconferences. Most participants at the moment come from the former
HTML ERB. Other representatives from the member organizations are
invited to participate. If you are interested in any of these groups,
please contact the chairperson: [57]Chris Lilley (CSS-WG) or [58]Dan
Connolly (HTML-WG and DOM-WG).
4.Audio Tapes from DCOM/CORBA Symposium Available
_by [59]Susan Hardy_
The W3C organized a one day Technical Symposium entitled [60]"A
Comparison of DCOM/CORBA" on November 18, 1996 in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. The invited experts for each technology were Nat Brown
for DCOM and Annrai O'Toole for CORBA. More than 70 participants from
30 W3C Member companies attended the Symposium. Complimentary audio
tapes with a complete set of handouts will be sent to each attendee.
If you did not attend the Symposium or would like additional copies,
the set of 6 audio tapes including the handouts are available for
$150. Please complete [61]the online form to receive the material.
Orders will be processed within 2 weeks and mailed 1st class mail upon
receipt of payment. We will accept the following forms of payment:
* check,
* Visa and
* MasterCard.
We can not accept purchase orders. Checks should be made payable to
MIT/W3C for $150 drawn on a U.S. bank.
_W3C Mailing Address:
MIT, Laboratory for Computer Science
World Wide Web Consortium
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Attention: DCOM/CORBA Order_
_________________________________________________________________
TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY
1. Web Accessibility Initiative Briefing Package Released
_by [62]Daniel Dardailler_
Executive Summary
Access to the World Wide Web by people with disabilities could be
significantly improved by changes to the Web's supporting protocols,
applications and, most importantly, content.
In order to fulfill its mission, i.e. realize the full potential of
the Web, W3C must promote a high degree of usability for people with
disabilities, and to that effect proposes the creation of this Project
with its associated International Program Office, for coordinating
five Web-related activities:
1. Technology development. Centered on protocols and data formats,
especially HTML, CSS, HTTP, PICS and PEP.
2. Development of tools. In particular, authoring tools that encourage
development of content in a format that supports use by people with
disabilities.
3. Guidelines for use of the technology. Guidelines targeted at
browser vendors, authoring tool vendors, and content creators.
4. Education of content creators. Raising the awareness of the content
creation community to the needs of people with disabilities as they
relate to the Web community and technology.
5. Research and advanced development. User interface design, novel
devices, certification tools and labels are all areas where additional
work is required before standardization is appropriate.
At a recent meeting hosted (and called for) by the U.S. Government at
the White House (see participant list in Annex), this International
Program Office proposal was presented and W3C was clearly designated
as the ideal host for such a program. Five keywords were put forward
to justify this choice: International, Centralized, Consensus,
Predictability, and Participation.
This briefing package details the context of such a project, the exact
purpose of these five areas of activity, and the expected planning
(time, resource, and external funding).
This executive summary and the [63]complete briefing package are
available on-line.
_________________________________________________________________
ARCHITECTURE
1. Latest Jigsaw Package Released to Public
_by [64]Tom Greene_
_Jigsaw_ 1.0alpha5 is now [65]available for the public. See the
[66]release notes
For people not familar with Jigsaw some background papers are
available:
[67]Jigsaw design rationaleal
If you want to understand why _Jigsaw_ has this funny design.
[68]Jigsaw performances evaluation (updated for 1.0alpha3)
A quick report on the current performances of _Jigsaw_.
2.Web Performance Analysis Sparks Public Interest
_by [69]Henrik Frystyk Nielsen and [70]Rohit Khare_
W3C recently released a [71]NOTE outlining significant performance
improvements when using HTTP/1.1 pipelining, PNG, and CSS1 Style
Sheets. The experimental results submitted to the ACM [72]SIGCOMM 97
conference demonstrate a significant reduction in TCP packets, for
example. Earlier drafts of this work were presented at the San Jose
IETF (December 1996) and at the London W3C Advisory Committee meeting
(January 1997). Originally, the investigation focused on HTTP/1.1
performance improvements, but it soon became clear that there are
significant performance optimizations to be done in the presentation
and rendering layers as well. Other members of the W3C Team pitched in
to demonstrate the effect of replacing common inline GIF images with
Cascaded Style Sheets (CSS1) and Portable Network Graphics (PNG), as
well as HTML compression.
In the paper, we describe our investigation of the effect of
persistent connections, pipelining and link level document
compression on several client and server HTTP implementations,
including W3C's own Libwww and Jigsaw. While somewhat artificial
and possibly overstating the benefits of HTTP/1.1, we believe the
tests and results approximate some common behavior seen in
browsers. The results confirm that HTTP/1.1 is meeting its major
design goals. Our experience has been that implementation details
are very important to achieve all of the benefits of HTTP/1.1. For
all our tests, a pipelined HTTP/1.1 implementation outperformed
HTTP/1.0, even when the HTTP/1.0 implementation used multiple
connections in parallel, under all network environments tested. The
savings were at least a factor of two, and sometimes as much as
than a factor of ten, in terms of packets transmitted. Elapsed time
improvement is less dramatic, and strongly depends on your network
connection. The use of CSS1 and PNG may result in an equally
significant saving in the amount of bytes used to download Web
pages. The properties of CSS1 can replace many presentation layouts
currently archived by using inlined GIF images and PNG gives due to
it's better encoding and faster rendering and advantage in
presenting the page to the end user.
The results have sparked considerable press and developer interest.
John Markoff described the results in the New York Times on February
16, followed by MSNBC and several other trade publications. W3C plans
to present this material in detail in April at WWW6 and in September
at SIGCOMM97 in Cannes, France. Highlighting the positive synergy of
these W3C-led technologies is a powerful argument for W3C's leadership
of Web evolution.
3. Briefing Package on Synchronized Multimedia Available
_by [73]Philipp Hoshka_
Executive Summary
Web technology is limited today when it comes to creating continuous
multimedia presentations. For these applications, content authors need
to express things like "five minutes into the presentation, show image
X and keep it on the screen for ten seconds". More generally speaking,
there must be a way to describe the synchronization between the
different media (audio, video, text, images) that make up a continuous
multimedia presentation.
There is an imminent danger that a plethora of non-interoperable
solutions for integrating real-time multimedia content into the Web
architecture will emerge. These different solutions will most likely
not result from a healthy competition advancing technological
progress. In contrast, they will result from a simple lack of
communication between the three very different communities involved,
namely the Web community, the CD-ROM community and the community
working on Internet-based audio/video-on-demand.
Representatives from each community participated at the recent W3C
workshop on "[74]Real Time Multimedia and the Web". In the feedback we
received after this event, members of all communities, including
several key players, reported that they see W3C as a promising forum
for exchanging ideas and for finding consensus on common solutions for
integrating synchronized multimedia presentations into the Web.
A synergy of their orthogonal expertise holds the promise that a
single, sound technical solution can be found for many of the issues
of real-time multimedia content on the Web. Such agreements are the
necessary signal for independent content providers to start creating
synchronized multimedia content for the Web, and, thus, for market
growth in this area.
The working group proposed in this briefing package should devise a
format for describing synchronized multimedia presentations. This
includes both specifying such a format and developing several
interoperable implementations. Submission of a W3C recommendation is
planned for the end of 97.
_This executive summary and the [75]complete briefing package are
available on-line._
4. Libwww 5.1 Update Released to Members
_by [76]Henrik Frystyk Nielsen_
As part of our experimental tests of HTTP/1.1 performance, we updated
Libwww - the W3C Sample Code Library to version 5.1. [77]The code is
available for members to download . Libwww now supports full
pipelining of HTTP/1.1 requests as well as additional HTTP/1.1
performance tuning. The functionality is demonstrated in the Libwww
robot and the Line Mode browser. These enhancements will be made
available to the public on March 18, after the exclusive one-month
Member review cycle.
At the same time, the status of Libwww changed from [78]"reference
code" to "sample code" which better describes the intended use of the
code base. This is expected to be the last release of Libwww, since we
are now moving to the Jigsaw code base, written in Java. Java provides
a more powerful platform for experimentation than C, which will
accelerate our new protocol experiments this year.
_________________________________________________________________
_USER INTERFACE_
1. W3C Sponsors _Multilingualism and Internationalization_ Panel at WWW6
Joint panel at WWW6 (Santa Clara) and G7 conference (Bonn)
[79]by Bert Bos
[80]Tomas Carrasco Benitez, the initiator and co-organizer with
[81]W3C of the Symposium on Internationalization and Multilingualism
in Sevilla last November, is organizing a panel at [82]WWW6, as a
follow-up to the symposium. The event will be linked by a two-way
video-link to the [83]G7 conference in Bonn.
The joint panel is intended to show and help the convergence between
Web technology and the needs of electronic commerce, and in particular
the shared goal of making information accessible in many languages.
The G7 project [84]"A global marketplace for SMEs" was set up in 1995
by the countries of the G7 group (Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, United Kingdom and USA), to help small and medium sized
enterprises (SMEs) to use and contribute to the "Information Society."
The European Commission is organizing the first annual conference for
the project, which is centered around electronic commerce and
globalization of the market.
2. Working Draft on Design Issues for HTML Forms Available
_by [85]Arnaud Le Hors_
A new [86]HTML draft is available for review as a W3C working draft:
_[87]Design Issues for HTML Forms_
Although HTML and HTTP were originally designed to provide users with
a means to retrieve documents from a server, they also provide for
sending user input to the server. Initially only a crude mechanism to
enter one or more keywords was supported. This served the need for
performing simple queries but it soon became obvious that a more
general approach was needed to provide for requesting information from
the user. NCSA Mosaic added markups for basic form fields such as
radio buttons, checkboxes, single and multiline text fields, single
and multiselect menus etc.
Forms have proven to be useful in a wide variety of applications
however, as defined in HTML 3.2, they suffer from a number of
limitations. This draft reviews these problems and presents some
possible extensions to HTML to solve them.
_________________________________________________________________
_FEATURES_
W3C Gearing Up for Sixth International Web Conference
_by [88]Rohit Khare_
W3C's history has long been intertwined with the International World
Wide Web Conference Series -- starting with W3C's birth at the very
first Geneva conference through to its management of WWW4 (Boston) and
WWW5 (Paris). In 1997, the WWW6 torch passes to Santa Clara, and W3C
will be there in force.
During the week of April 7-11, W3C's worldwide technical staff will
participate in workshops and tutorials, a W3C Conference Track,
Developer's Day sessions, and in several adjacent W3C Member meetings.
This article presents some background on our mission at W3C; please
keep an eye on our [89]W3C@WWW6 Overview Page for the latest
information. W3C Members are also strongly encouraged to participate
in the conference, and in our panels, workshops, and symposia, as
described below.
It is worth noting that WWW6, like its predecessors and next year's
WWW7 (Brisbane, Australia), are sponsored by the [90]International
World Wide Web Conference Committee, not the Consortium.
W3C Conference Track
W3C will be using its main Conference track as an 'Annual Report' to
the wider Web Community. Much like the semiannual Advisory Committee
reports, this is our opportunity to present and defend our agenda to
the community we serve. The W3C track as a whole is a primer on the
entire range of our activities:
* Keynote on W3C History, Structure, and Recent Accomplishments.
* Executive Overviews of each Domain
* Project Updates on each of our several Activity Areas
* Panel discussion with Member representatives in several Activity
Areas
* "Town Hall" session with W3C's Management Team
We hope this agenda will help us reach out to a rapidly expanding
constituency who may not be familiar with W3C's origin, scope, or
expertise. We will also back up the conference program with our first
W3C Folio, a high-quality overview brochure.
Developer's Day & History Day
While many academic, user, and engineering communities converge at WWW
conferences, the organizers have traditionally reserved the last day
of the week for the truly hard-core, the hackers, protocol developers,
and visionaries behind tomorrow's Web technology. WWW6 embraces this
charge with an expanded Developer's Day and a brand-new History Day on
Friday April 11th.
The new Developer's Day will reach out to new "developer" communities:
content providers, business developers, authors, etc. W3C's
contribution will focus mainly on the original core, with technical
talks from all three Domains. Architecture Domain will host
discussions of HTTP/1.1 implementation, performance, and its future at
the IETF, along with briefings on real-time and multimedia technology.
User Interface Domain is preparing to dissect Amaya and its underlying
Thot library, as well as a host of HTML and CSS related developments.
Technology & Society Domain's various project team reports will bring
together W3C staff and Member organization volunteers to talk to
developers about implementing PICS, Digital Signatures, and more.
History Day is an effort to capture the lore and traditions of the
seven-year old Web community. W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee will
present a joint Keynote speech, "History and Developers" for both of
these programs. In addition, W3C staff will be assisting History Day
organizers in locating speakers, timelines, and other matters.
Developer's Day was the subject of [91]a recent WWW6 Newsletter
feature story, as well.
Resources
There are several ways for Members to keep abreast of Conference
activities and W3C's role at the conference. WWW6 itself publishes
extensive information about registration, schedules, and accepted
papers at its [92]own site. Registered attendees will have access to
even more WWW6 information, agenda planning tools, and discussion
groups through a new [93]Interactive Conference Environment (ICE),
part of the organizing committee's commitment to wiring the conference
itself.
Rohit Khare, khare@w3.org, is W3C's primary contact for WWW6
activities. To find out the latest about W3C's participation, see the
[94]W3C@WWW6 Overview Page on W3C's public web site. W3C Members can
contact Mr. Khare directly to suggest topics, panelists, and speakers
in support of W3C's agenda items.
Finally, this Newsletter will also report on major new developments
and calls for participation, so keep an eye out for articles like
WWW6: [95]Multilingualism and Internationalization.
_________________________________________________________________
_UPCOMING EVENTS_
1. Deadlines needing Action
* "Working Group on Synchronized Multimedia " must be reviewed by
March 10,1997
* "Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) " must be reviewed by March
26, 1997
2.News of Future W3C Events and Important Dates
_Proposed Upcoming Events:_
The W3C will organize the four meetings listed below around the 6th
International World Wide Web Conference. Please take note that these
meetings _are not confirmed._
You will receive an email announcement for each meeting with the
corresponding details when the meeting is confirmed. For further
meeting updates, please reference the [96]Member Site Calendar of
Events. The main contact for
these meetings is Susan Hardy, susan@w3.org, +1-617-253-2613.
1. _[97]W3C Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities_
* Date: Sunday, April 6, 1997 from 09:00 am - 05:00 pm
* Place: Between San Francisco and San Jose, CA
* Sponsor: TBD
_2. Electronic Commerce Interest Group Meeting_
* Date: Friday, April 11, 1997 from 09:00 am - 05:00 pm
* Place: Santa Clara, CA
* Sponsor: TBD
_3. Security Interest Group Meeting_
* Date: Saturday, April 12, 1997
* Place: Between San Francisco and San Jose, CA
* Sponsor: TBD
_4. PICS Working Group Meeting_
* Date:Thursday Evening April 10, 1997, for approximately 2 hours
* Place: Santa Clara, CA
* Sponsor: TBD
Some of the items from the complete [98]Member Events Calendar
_Coming up in February_
February 24: Signup for participation in [99]DSig Implementation Phase
Signature Label Team _Deadline_
_Coming up in April_
April 7-11,1997: [100]WWW6 is in Santa Clara, California.
_Coming up in June _
June 18-19: 6th Advisory Committee Meeting to be held in Tokyo
_______________________________________________________________________
_PARTICIPATION OPPORTUNITIES_
1. Working Group on Synchronized Multimedia
_by [101]Philipp Hoshka_
_The following information was emailed to advisory committee members_:
Dear W3C Advisory Committee Member:
Web technology is limited today when it comes to creating continuous
multimedia presentations. For these applications, content authors need
to express things like "five minutes into the presentation, show image
X and keep it on the screen for ten seconds". More generally speaking,
there must be a way to describe the synchronization between the
different media (audio, video, text, images) that make up a continuous
multimedia presentation.
There is an imminent danger that a plethora of non-interoperable
solutions for integrating real-time multimedia content into the Web
architecture will emerge. These different solutions will most likely
not result from a healthy competition advancing technological
progress.
In contrast, they will result from a simple lack of communication
between the three very different communities involved, namely the Web
community, the CD-ROM community and the community working on
Internet-based audio/video-on-demand.
Representatives from each community participated at the recent W3C
workshop on "Real Time Multimedia and the Web". In the feedback we
received after this event, members of all communities, including
several key players, reported that they see W3C as a promising forum
for exchanging ideas and for finding consensus on common solutions for
integrating synchronized multimedia presentations into the Web.
A synergy of their orthogonal expertise holds the promise that a
single, sound technical solution can be found for many of the issues
of real-time multimedia content on the Web. Such agreements are the
necessary signal for independent content providers to start creating
synchronized multimedia content for the Web, and, thus, for market
growth in this area.
The working group proposed in this briefing package should devise a
format for describing synchronized multimedia presentations. This
includes both specifying such a format and developing several
interoperable implementations. Submission of a W3C recommendation is
planned for the end of 97.
Key Points for Consideration
1. To give members the opportunity to discuss about this briefing
package, W3C has created a member-only mailing list. To join in to the
discussion, send an e-mail to w3c-multimedia-request@w3.org, and put
"subscribe" in the Subject: line.
2. All W3C members are invited to consider submitting a proposal to
participate in the working group. Estimates of resource requirements
are detailed below.
See the [102]full briefing package
The working group should comprise about fifteen engineers of key
players in the CD-ROM, Web and Internet-Audio/Video-on-Demand
communities. Participants should be people that actually implement the
specification developed by this group. Participation will require at
least 20% of the time of an engineer. The current working group
schedule is for nine months. The overall resource consumption of this
working group will thus be 2.75 person-years.
If the working group is established, it is proposed to hold the first
meeting on March 20/21 1997 in the San Francisco Bay area.
Procedure:
1. Read the[103] full briefing package.
2. Before 10 March, 1997, fill out the following form and send it to
[104]synch-vote@w3.org.
3. The W3C Director will announce the participating companies, and
the final amount of W3C resources to be invested, by Monday, 14
March, 1997.
Participation Proposal Form
********BEGIN FORM**********
First Name:
Last Name:
Email Address:
Employer:
_Please complete the following for the engineer(s)
that you want to participate in the working group: _
_Name of proposed participant in working group:
Participant's email address and telephone number: _
We understand the level of commitment as outlined in the proposal.
We have prepared our own estimates and are
willing to provide (if selected by the W3C Director):
(indicate resources to be provided)
We will be willing to provide engineering resources to specify and/or
implement the following as part of our contribution to the Stream
Synchronization Working Format Working Group:
We have intellectual property rights related to the Stream
Synchronization Working Format Working Group, and will dispose of them
as follows:
We will participate only under the following conditions:
Other items to be considered by the W3C Director:
********END FORM**********
_2. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)_
_by [105]Daniel Dardailler_
_The following information was emailed to advisory committee members_:
Dear Advisory Committee Member,
Attached is the Call for Participation for the Project, Web Access for
People with Disabilities.
If you have any questions or need further information, please contact
Daniel Dardailler at danield@w3.org or on +33.4.93.65.79.83
Call for Participation - Web Access for People with Disabilities
As part of its commitment to realize the full potential of the Web,
the Consortium has, since its foundation, worked to ensure that the
Web can be easily accessible to people with disabilities. However, due
to staffing resource constraints, work in this area has so far been
limited. The scope of our involvement to date extends to hosting the
Web Accessibility page [located at
[106]http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/ ] as a nucleus for future
efforts.
After six months of preliminary work by W3C staff, along with the help
of our Members and various organizations either representing or
working for people with disabilities, we are issuing a Call for Member
Participation in a new Activity. As required by the W3C Process (Draft
7), the staff has prepared the Web Access for People with Disabilities
briefing package, located online at
[107]http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/access-brief .
The Participation Procedure is as follows:
1. Review the [108]briefing package.
2. Complete the following form and send it to [109]access-vote@w3.org
NO LATER than 26 March, 1997.
3. The W3C Director will announce the participating companies, and
the amount of W3C resources to be invested, by 2 April, 1997.
Please complete this form and send it to [110]access-vote@w3.org NO
LATER than 26 March, 1997. Thank you.
********BEGIN FORM**********
First Name:
Last Name:
Email Address:
Employer:
Choose one of the following by marking with an X between the
[brackets]:
[ ] We agree that W3C staff resources be spent to create and manage
this initiative,
[ ] W3C staff resources should not be spent on this initiative,
because: (please explain why)
If you'd like to actively participate in such a project, please
complete the following:
- Indicate which of the five major activities described in the
briefing package you are most willing to participate in, and which of
the interest and working groups described you want to be part of.
1. Technology development.
2. Development of tools.
3. Guidelines for use of the technology.
4. Education of content creators.
5. Research and advanced development.
Name(s) of engineer(s) to be assigned:
Engineer's email address(es):
- We understand the level of commitment as outlined in the proposal.
We have prepared our own estimates and are willing to provide (if
selected by the W3C Director):
(indicate resources to be provided)
- We will provide the following source code as part of our
contribution to this initiative:
- We will be willing to provide engineering resources to specify
and/or implement the following as part of our contribution to this
initiative:
- We have intellectual property rights related to this initiative, and
will dispose of them as follows:
- Indicate if, as a W3C member, you are willing to participate in the
special donation fund being put in place for this Project and
International Program Office.
- We will participate only under the following conditions:
- Other items to be considered by the W3C Director:
********END FORM**********
_______________________________________________________________________
_OTHER CONTENTS_
_______________________________________________________________________
_DEPARTMENTS_
_ACCESSING CONSORTIUM RESOURCES_
W3C Member Web Site Access
by[111] Sally Khudairi
The Member Site Access System has been created to enable you to access
the Member Site from the office or a remote location. Each individual
from Member organizations will be assigned a unique username and
password after completing the form at
[112]http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Help/AccessForm
Each request is reviewed individually by designated W3C team members
to ensure that the site will only be accessed by authorized users.
Usernames and passwords are issued via email by the following [US]
business day. Please take this opportunity to apply for a personal
password so that you are prepared when critical information is posted
on the Member Site.
Access to W3C Member information is a benefit of Membership. Members
lose the benefit of privileged access if they distribute their
passwords to non-Members or make Member information publicly
available. Please, protect your access privilege.
Contact Sally Khudairi at [113]khudairi@w3.org or on + 1.617.253.8036
with any questions.
Technical Reports & Publications
Members are encouraged to review the [114]present set of (30)
documents produced by the W3C. These include:
* Recommendations (5)
* Proposed Recommendations (0)
* Working Drafts (7)
* Notes (18)
Current Software Releases
* [115]Amaya (latest version .95beta) Feb-97
* [116]Libwww (latest version 5.1a) Feb-97
* [117]Jigsaw (latest version 1.0alpha5) Feb-97
Press Release, Newsletter, and W3J Archives
As Press releases of W3C issues are made, they will be highlighted in
current issues of this newsletter. To provide Members with simple
access to historical material, an [118]archive of news and press
releases is maintained in addition to the collection of [119]earlier
newsletters and the [120]W3J Archives.
_________________________________________________________________
MEMBER & STAFF UPDATES
W3C Adds Technical Writing Support
_by [121]Tim Berners-Lee_
I am pleased to announce that on March 1 Ian Jacobs will be officially
contracting with W3C to assist us with our technical writing needs.
Consortium Membership
Welcome to two new Consortium Member organizations :
* Canal +
* TIAA-CREF
W3C is now 161 member organizations.
[122]New Member Orientation information, the full [123]Membership
list, and [124]list of Advisory Committee representatives are
available in the W3C Member Site.
_The W3C Global Team _
The W3C Team is located around the world at sites hosted by the
following three organizations:
* [125]Massachusetts Institute of Technology [126]Laboratory for
Computer Science [MIT/LCS] in the United States;
* [127]Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en
Automatique [INRIA] in Europe;
* [128]Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus in Asia.
_CAPTION:_ _The W3C Global Team (alphabetical list)_
NAME, email, W3C host organization NAME, email, W3C host organization
Dr. Jean-Frangois Abramatic, _[129]jfa@w3.org _MIT
Pamela Ahern, [130]pam@w3.org, MIT
Dr. Anselm Baird-Smith, [131]abaird@w3.org, INRIA
Tim Berners-Lee, [132]timbl@w3.org, MIT
Dr. Bert Bos, [133]bert@w3.org, INRIA
Stephane Boyera, [134]boyera@w3.org, INRIA
Eui-Suk Chung, [135]euisuk@w3.org, MIT (Ericsson)
Daniel Connolly , [136]connolly@w3.org, MIT
Beth Curran, [137]beth@w3.org, MIT
Dr. Daniel Dardailler, [138]danield@w3.org, INRIA
Philip DesAutels, [139]philipd@w3.org), MIT
Jim Gettys, [140]jg@w3.org, MIT (DEC)
Dr. Tom Greene, [141]tjg@w3.org, MIT
Ramzi Guetari, [142]guetari@w3.org, INRIA
Dr. Tatsuya Hagino, [143]hagino@w3.org, Keio
Susan M. Hardy, [144]susan@w3.org, MIT
Dr. Philipp Hoschka, [145]hoschka@w3.org, INRIA
Jose Kahan, [146]kahan@w3.org, INRIA
Rohit Khare, [147]khare@w3.org ,MIT Sally Khudairi,
[148]khudairi@w3.org, MIT
Yves Lafon, [149]lafon@w3.org, INRIA
Ora Lassila, [150]lassila@w3.org, MIT (Nokia)
Dr. Arnaud LeHors, [151]lehors@w3.org, MIT
Hekon W. Lie, [152]howcome@w3.org, INRIA
Chris Lilley, [153]chris@w3.org, INRIA
Dr. Jim Miller, [154]jmiller@w3.org, MIT
Yukari Mitsuhashi, [155]yukari@w3.org, Keio
Stephan Montigaud, [156]montigaud@w3.org, MIT
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen , [157]frystyk@w3.org, MIT
Luc Ottavj, [158]ottavj@w3.org, INRIA
Dr.Vincent Quint, [159]quint@w3.org, INRIA
Dr. Dave Raggett, [160]dsr@w3.org, MIT (HP)
Joseph Reagle, Jr., [161]reagle@w3.org), MIT
Josiane Roberts, [162]josiane@w3.org, INRIA
Dr. Nobuo Saito, [163]nobuo.saito@w3.org , Keio
Ralph Swick, [164]swick@w3.org, MIT
Dr. Irhne Vatton, [165]vatton @w3.org, INRIA
Dr. Daniel Veillard, [166]veillard@w3.org, INRIA
A [167]structured view of the team is available on Member pages.
For more information on individual team members and their work, please
see "[168]People of the W3C".
For all personnel issues please contact Jean-Frangois Abramatic by
email at [169]jfa@w3.org.
For changes and questions about W3C Membership, please contact Beth
Curran at MIT ([170]beth@w3.org) , Josiane Roberts at INRIA
([171]josiane@w3.org), or Yukari Mitsuhashi at Keio University
([172]yukari@w3.org).
_________________________________________________________________
_POLICIES_
Press releases about W3C, and submissions to W3C
It is important that any public information relating to the Consortium
is accurate and consistent. To further this, text has been added to
the [173]Consortium's Interim Process to explain what the W3C
Consortium requires for a specification to be "submitted to W3C" or
similar phrase.
In general we require that any press release by members mentioning the
W3C (or the host sites MIT, INRIA and Keio) be authorized by Sally
Khudairi, who is in charge of global communications for the
Consortium. Press releases (in whole or relevant part) should be
addressed by email to [174]w3t-PR@w3.org . We will endeavour to
respond within two working days if not more rapidly.
Use of W3C Member logo
Members of the World Wide Web Consortium are authorized and encouraged
to display the "W3C Member" icon on their products, packaging and
literature, provided that no implication of endorsement of products by
W3C is made. Feel free to use it also on your web pages, in which case
it must be linked to [175]http://www.w3.org/. This is [176]fully
described on the member page.
Relationships with other organizations
W3C must clearly define its relationship to other organizations. The
identification of this relationship with 15 organizations is discussed
in the [177]Process document.
_________________________________________________________________
References
---------------------------------------------------------------------
50. mailto:timbl@w3.org
51. mailto:howcome@w3.org
52. ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/pub/dist/web/arena
53. http://www.yggdrasil.com/Products/arena.html
54. mailto:quint@w3.org
55. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Group/charter
56. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Style/Group/charter
57. mailto:chris@w3.org
58. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/connolly@w3.org
59. mailto:susan@w3.org
60. http://w3.org/pub/WWW/OOP/96-symposium/cfp
61. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/OOP/DCOMCORBA-oform.html
62. mailto:danield@w3.org
63. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/access-brief
64. mailto:tjg@w3.org
65. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Member/Newsletter/970221.html#Getting
66. http://www24.w3.org:8080/tjg/WWW/Team/9702/RelNotes.html
67. http://www24.w3.org:8080/tjg/WWW/Team/9702/User/Introduction/wp.html
68.
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html
69. mailto:Frystyk@w3.org
70. mailto:khare@w3.org
71. http://www24.w3.org:8080/tjg/WWW/Performance/Pipeline.html
72. http://www.acm.org/sig_conferences/conf_by_sig.html#SIGCOMM
73. mailto:hoschka@w3.org
74. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/AudioVideo/RTMW96.html
75. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/AudioVideo/Synch-brief.html
76. mailto:frystyk@w3.org
77. http://www.w3.org/member/WWW/Library/
78. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Member/Newsletter/970221.html#REF
79. mailto:bert@w3.org
80. http://www.crpht.lu/~carrasco/winter/
81. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/International/Sevilla-96/
82. http://www6conf.slac.stanford.edu/
83. http://www.G7ec.de/
84. http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/smehome.htm
85. mailto:lehors@w3.org
86. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/
87. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/TR/WD-forms-970203
88. mailto:khare@w3.org
89. http://www.w3.org/pub/Conferences/WWW6
90. http://www.iw3c2.org/
91. http://www.webtuitive.com/www6/feb97.html
92. http://www6conf.org/
93. http://ice.www6conf.org/
94. http://www.w3.org/pub/Conferences/WWW6
95. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Member/Newsletter/970221.html#Multi
96. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Member/Eventscal.html
97. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/
98. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Member/Eventscal.html
99. http://www24.w3.org:8080/tjg/WWW/Team/Security/DSig/DsigCall2.html
100. http://www6conf.slac.stanford.edu/
101. mailto:hoschka@w3.org
102. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/AudioVideo/Synch-brief.html
103. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/AudioVideo/Synch-brief.html
104. mailto:synch-vote@w3.org
105. mailto:danield@w3.org
106. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/
107. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/access-brief
108. http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Disabilities/access-brief
109. mailto:access-vote@w3.org
110. mailto:access-vote@w3.org
-----------------------------------------------