W3C Advisory Committee Meeting, Hiroshima

On April 8 and 9, 2024, I attended the W3C's Advisory Committee Meeting (hereinafter, "the AC Meeting"), held in Hiroshima, Japan.

The W3C, an abbreviation for the World Wide Web Consortium, promotes the standardization of various web technologies and will celebrate its 30th anniversary this fall. Within the W3C, an internal Advisory Committee (AC) network consists of representatives from each member organization. These representatives meet at biannual AC Meetings which are held in different countries and cities around the globe.

Since Mitsue-Links joined the W3C in 2004 (in Japanese), I've served as our Advisory Committee Representative (AC Rep for short). While I've not recently attended any AC Meetings due to the coronavirus pandemic and for other reasons, this time, I decided to participate since the event was being held in Japan.

By the way, for your information, we've previously published Columns that touched on AC Meetings – they include Taku Fujita's, our current President/Managing Director, "The Ever-Expanding World of Web Technology - Attending the W3C AC Meeting" from 2005, as well as my "Renewed Thoughts on One Web" (in Japanese) from 2009.

Since content discussed at the AC Meeting is confidential in nature, I'm unable to provide an overview of the discussions. However, in this Column, I'd like to share three things that came to mind while attending the conference.

The first, a sense of appreciation and wonder at the high level of interoperability on the web that the W3C has achieved over the past 30 years of standards advancement and publication. Despite various twists and turns, the web wouldn't be what it is today without the efforts of the W3C and its members. Therefore, I'd like to express my gratitude to all those who've contributed to the continuation of the W3C and its activities.

Secondly, related to the above, are my expectations regarding the W3C's future. Last year, the W3C made major changes to its operational structure and governance (W3C re-launched as a public-interest non-profit organization) and elected Seth Dobbs as CEO (W3C announces Seth Dobbs as new CEO). Going forward, I greatly hope for the continued advancement of the W3C.

Thirdly, and in contradiction to my sense of anticipation described above, are the magnitude of challenges we must face. A partial list of these challenges can be found in Tim Berners-Lee's, inventor of the web and founder of the W3C, Marking the Web's 35th Birthday: An Open Letter, published last month to commemorate the 35th birthday of the web. For those interested, a Japanese translation can be found here: yomoyomo's translation.

While, I've written the above in a very candid manner, our company will continue to support the W3C's standardization work in whatever ways we can - through such a role, we hope to contribute not only to the industry but also to wider society. Upon joining the W3C twenty years ago, our Founder and Representative Chairman Masashi Takahashi, in his Column titled "Participation in the W3C", wrote the following:

One of the reasons why web standards do not have a greater profile in society is that companies that build websites do not fully understand their purposes. To put it strongly, there is indifference toward them.

For our part, we will reflect on our past approach, ensure that we fully understand the principles of the W3C, and then participate in their activities. We will contribute to society by implementing outstanding technologies and by demonstrating the effects of the continued development of the web.

Nowadays, while compliance with web standards has become an industry norm, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the birth of the web, the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the W3C, and the 20th anniversary of our continued membership in the W3C, we would like to reaffirm our intentions in the words quoted above.