Valdis,
Thank you for your reply to my message:
... The W3C... constrains meaningful debate to those willing and able
to pay US$50,000 per year. I agree that there was a point in
the early development of web standards when that constraint was
beneficial....
Why was it beneficial then?
There was a lot of concern that a consensus would be too dificult
to achieve unless there were some entry barriers. The other
reasons involved mutual nondisclosure and similar features of
quickly-emerging technology companies. None of those reasons
should have ever been assumed to be perminant. Another benefit
was that the membership fees established a great infrastructure
of facilities and staff for the W3C
And why is it non-beneficial now...?
Well, I've already given a couple reasons beyond those of
Normon Solomon's, but consider this: The W3C has over 400 members!
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
That's over US$20 million in annual membership fees.
Typical W3C members don't even seem to realize they are part of the
consortium. For example, TIAA-CREF and Recording for the Blind and
Dyslexic are both members. But after days on the phone and over
email, nobody I've reached within those organizations has any idea
who their W3C Advisory Committee representative is.
Recording for the Blind asks me for money every few months, and I've
given to them in the past, but knowing that they spend $50K a year
without any idea who their AC rep. is makes it a lot less likely for
me to want to donate anything else to them. It would be different
if their AC rep. stood up for their interests, but nobody at
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic with whom I've spoken had even
the faintest idea what microphone upload was or how it could benefit
them. Same with TIAA-CREF, supposedly representing the interests
of tens of thousands of language teachers.
On the other hand, are there any other *real* contenders for whom
$50K would be a hardship?
Absolutly. The foremost are probably the developers of Emacs'
w3-mode, but I'm sure I could name a dozen tiny browser-developing
projects of one kind or another, if you're interested. How about
the developers of LWP.pm and CGI.pm -- do you expect them to plop
down 50 grand anytime soon?
Cheers,
James