Subject: Re: HTML forms

From: "James P. Salsman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 18:37:59 -0800 (PST)

Valdis,

Thank you for your reply to my message:

>>...  The W3C... constrains meaningful debate to those willing and able
>> to pay US$50,000 per year.  I agree that there was a point in
>> the early development of web standards when that constraint was
>> beneficial....
> 
> Why was it beneficial then?

There was a lot of concern that a consensus would be too dificult 
to achieve unless there were some entry barriers.  The other 
reasons involved mutual nondisclosure and similar features of 
quickly-emerging technology companies.  None of those reasons 
should have ever been assumed to be perminant.  Another benefit 
was that the membership fees established a great infrastructure 
of facilities and staff for the W3C

> And why is it non-beneficial now...?

Well, I've already given a couple reasons beyond those of 
Normon Solomon's, but consider this:  The W3C has over 400 members!
  http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/List
That's over US$20 million in annual membership fees.

Typical W3C members don't even seem to realize they are part of the
consortium.  For example, TIAA-CREF and Recording for the Blind and 
Dyslexic are both members.  But after days on the phone and over 
email, nobody I've reached within those organizations has any idea 
who their W3C Advisory Committee representative is.

Recording for the Blind asks me for money every few months, and I've 
given to them in the past, but knowing that they spend $50K a year 
without any idea who their AC rep. is makes it a lot less likely for 
me to want to donate anything else to them.  It would be different 
if their AC rep. stood up for their interests, but nobody at 
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic with whom I've spoken had even 
the faintest idea what microphone upload was or how it could benefit 
them.  Same with TIAA-CREF, supposedly representing the interests
of tens of thousands of language teachers.

> On the other hand, are there any other *real* contenders for whom
> $50K would be a hardship?

Absolutly.  The foremost are probably the developers of Emacs'
w3-mode, but I'm sure I could name a dozen tiny browser-developing 
projects of one kind or another, if you're interested.  How about 
the developers of LWP.pm and CGI.pm -- do you expect them to plop 
down 50 grand anytime soon?

Cheers,
James