"I remember a time... when the W3C was indeed a member organisation — but you can’t work for the Web if you don’t work with the Web. Over the years, the W3C community layered fix atop fix to progressively address the vexations and limitations of being a member organisation. Three decades in, the W3C looks a lot more like a public interest organisation financed by a generous group of donors who call themselves 'members'."
#RobinBerjon, 2022
"It’s important to note that preventing the concentration of power is not about (architectural) decentralisation. Architectural decentralisation can certainly help, but it isn’t enough: as explained in Capture Resistance, linking on the Web is technically decentralised, but that was not enough to protect the Web from being centralised by Google. What matters here is the active checks and balances on excessive power."
#RobinBerjon, 2022
"The [W3C's] membership-based governance model that prevails today (and its accountability shortcomings) actively prevents other sources of financing. Why help fund an organisation that looks like it will serve its members first and Big Tech first amongst those? No matter how much the individual representatives of those companies might sincerely seek to be independent from their employers, if that independence is not guaranteed by the process... it’s a pinky promise."
#RobinBerjon, 2022
Intriguing that this was announced around the same time Berjon was writing about reforming W3C governance...
"The World Wide Web Consortium is set to pursue 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The launch as a new legal entity in January 2023 preserves the core mission of the Consortium to shepherd the web by developing open standards with contributions from W3C Members, staff, and the international community."