Standards

Standards Organizations

There are various organizations that contribute to the features of the Open Web Platform. They vary in their methods and focus, and are generally referred to as Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) or standards bodies (though some people use the term standards body to refer exclusively to larger, traditional organizations that are often government-backed).

Generally, these Web Standards bodies work together, with complementary scope. Here are a few of these standards bodies, with their area of focus.

W3C

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) focuses on markup languages, client-side APIs, data models and interchange formats. W3C Web standards include HTML, CSS, DOM, SVG, Canvas, MathML, XML, RDF, Web Audio API, Server-Sent Events, WCAG, and many more. W3C is the the convener of WebPlatform.org, and one of the Web Platform stewards.

IETF

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) focuses on internet protocols. Their RFC (Request for Comment) specifications include TCP/IP and HTTP.

Ecma

Ecma International focuses on information and communication systems. Its primary Web standard is EcmaScript, which defines JavaScript.

Khronos

Khronos is a hardware manufacturer consortium that focuses on media and hardware-sensitive APIs. Their Web standards include WebGL.

Unicode

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization that focuses on defining an single unified character encoding scheme, for use in internationalization and localization. It primary specifications are the Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) and Universal Character Set (UCS) character encodings.

OASIS

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) focuses on Web services and e-business specifications.

ISO

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a de jure international government-sponsored standards body, which develops a wide range of specifications, and ratifies specifications from other standards bodies.

WHATWG

While not a formal standards organization, the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) plays an active role in the standards ecosystem, with a focus on browser-specific technologies, like markup languages and client-side APIs, as well as Internet protocols. Their specifications include HTML, Server-Sent Events, Canvas, and more.

De facto Standards

Some features of the Open Web Platform are developed outside standards bodies, either as experimental features or through rapid prototyping or community collaboration. These are known as de facto standards or defacto standards (from the Latin phrase de facto meaning “concerning fact”), in contrast to de jure standards (from the Latin for “concerning law”), to reflect the voluntary adoption and market dominance of the feature. Sometimes, de facto standards are ratified by standards bodies.