The World Wide Web Consortium exists to realize the full potential of the Web.
The W3C is an industry consortium which seeks to promote standards for the evolution of the Web and interoperability between WWW products by producing specifications and reference software. Although W3C is funded by industrial members, it is vendor-neutral, and its products are freely available to all.
The Consortium is international; jointly hosted by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science in the United States and in Europe by INRIA who provide both local support and performing core development. The W3C was initially established in collaboration with CERN, where the Web originated, and with support from DARPA and the European Commission. For details on the joint initiative and the contributions of CERN, INRIA, and MIT, please see the statement on the joint World Wide Web Initiative.
Membership is open to any organization which signs a membership agreement. If your organization would like to become a member of the W3C, please see The World Wide Web Consortium: Prospectus.
The W3C cannot take individual membership; those interested in W3C activities are encouraged to subscribe to the World Wide Web Journal, the official Journal of W3C.
To learn about W3C Member organizations and visit their World Wide Web sites, see Members of the W3 Consortium.
The Consortium provides a number of public services:
All products of the Consortium are available during development and on initial release to Members. One month after formal internal release, all software produced by or officially contributed to the W3C is available for general public use, commercial or otherwise.
The Consortium attempts to find common specifications for the Web so that through dramatic and rapid evolution, many organizations can work in their own fields to exploit and build on top of the global information space which is the web. The technologies involved in the web are changing very rapidly, and so the Consortium must have both efficiency and flexibility in its process, to be able to respond to the needs of the community in a timely manner. At the same time, it must be clear that the Consortium is neutral forum, and no member has a priori a greater say than another.