W3C Launches Technical Architecture Group

jdaly writes " In an effort to build shared understanding of Web Architecture principles, W3C has chartered and assembled a Technical Architecture Group - the TAG for short. The TAG will document cross-technology Web architecture principles, and resolve architectural issues. The TAG will conduct its work on a public mailing list. Chair Tim Berners-Lee, Paul Cotton, Roy Fielding, David Orchard, Norman Walsh, and Stuart Williams join appointees Tim Bray, Dan Connolly, and Chris Lilley as the first TAG participants. Of note to Slashdot readers (perhaps): Neither Tim Bray nor Roy Fielding are connected with W3C Member organizations. Instead, they were chosen for their knowledge and achievements - as well as the importance they have in technical communities. Here is the general press release and the TAG homepage. "

Comments

I love this idea but...

[sparkyz]

I just don't know if another WG is going to change anything. The "business of the web" forges ahead (or sideways, or in reverse) pretty consistently in defiance of any standards or consensus. Sometimes they even try to present their own proprietary technologies as THE standard. Remember in the early days of the MS anti-trust case and Netscape and AOL whining that MS had used their versions of the technologies to assert a control over the net that they were not entitled to. But yours (and my) feelings about MS aside, it was really a joke because both NS and AOL had already spent years subverting the standards to their own purposes. It's going to take a lot more than a dozen, admittedly great, minds hammering out a philosophyover coffeee and cigars.

Re:Bureaucrats

[Anonymous Coward]

Pathetic troll attempt there, buddy. Hint: REAL Trolls have names like "Signal 11" or "tchrist"*, not offensive/insulting ones, or ones with "Troll" in the name. The Art of Trolling is producing a massive argument from a seemingly innocuous and possibly reasonable comment.

You see, IE IS actually pretty standards-compliant, these days - so "if all a developer needs to know is IE", tey** still need to know W3C XHML, XML, CSS1, most of CSS2, W3C DOM, etc - and, IN ADDITION, should be aware of Microsoft's EXTENSIONS to those standards - so knowing IE involves knowing a SUPERSET of W3C stuff. Thus, your troll attempt is pathetic.

* tchrist and signal 11 DID troll for recreational purposes, though they also made normal posts - another hallmark of a REAL troll, rather than a crapflooder.

**"tey" is my favorite gender-neutral pronoun, since it sounds like the "they" which is on its way to common usage, without the singular/plural ambiguity.

No independents

[TheNut]

Apart from perhaps the w3c members themselves, there are no 'independent' members of any kind. No-one, for example, from the EFF or Commercial Linux/BSD vendors (are there commercial BSD vendors?)

Re:It's good to see this

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because MS weren't the original "bad-guys" (that'd probably be IBM in the 50s/60s), doesn't mean they're not bad guys.

Think about it - just because one murderer killed someone, doesn't make it O.K. for other people to do so.

Re:Good, maybe they will fix themselves!

[TheNut]

Or maybe, like me, they'll collapse on the floor in uncontrollable fits of hysterical laughter.

You poor, poor fool.

What's their position on RAND?

[HiThere]

I'm not sure I approve of any more "innovations" by the W3C. Their last one is still sticking in my throat.

Standards must be freely useable. If they aren't, then they aren't standards. If some body which calls itself a standards organization creates a "standard" that is not freely useable then they have simultaneously:
a) degraded the language
b) dishonored themselves
c) thrown into doubt all of their previous an future actions.

Has the W3C rescinded the RAND proposal? If so, then I haven't heard about it. If not, then they aren't a standards group, and if they claim to be one they lie. They were a standards group.
.

Re:What's their position on RAND?

[ebcdic]

In response to public comments and the reaction of various member organizations, the W3C invited Bruce Perens and Eben Moglen to join the Patent Policy Working Group. They also plan a new draft of the Patent Policy document. This was widely reported, so I'm surprised you haven't heard about it. See this announcement.

The W3C does not call itself a standards body. It issues "recommendations".

Too Late

[Ars-Fartsica]

Maybe, if during the HTTP NG proposals, the W3 was a bit more...motivated then this might be relevant...but at this point I don't think anyone really cares what the W3 thinks about "web architecture"....which I'm not even quite sure what they mean. Are they talking about XML? Plenty of W3 groups already address that. Privacy? Ditto. Markup? Ditto again.

This sounds like another circle jerk with the same professional committee-sitters as you'll find on half of the other W3 boards.

Good to see Tim Bray back

[mir]

I for one am really happy to see Tim Bray back in the W3C process. It's good to see someone as efficient, experimented and no-nonsense as him involved.

Plus of course as a Perl hacker, it's good to see the guy who coined the phrase "desperate Perl Hacker" (a target of the XML specification, the DPH can supposedly write an XML parser in a week) in a position to remind other W3C Working Groups that there exists indeed other languages than Java.