14 DAY TRIAL // ISOC (Internet Society) has recently announced a $2.5 million donation to the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) that will span across a period of three years, helping the organization with its recent struggles in restructuring its working groups. The donation was announced on December 11, 2009 in a joint press release.
Famous for its Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the ISOC has announced a firm position alongside the W3C in its efforts to bring more complete development standards to an erratic Internet. ISOC, a renowned leader itself in Internet standards, has managed and successfully contributed in developing standard suites like SMTP (Simple MailTransfer Protocol), the Domain Name System (DNS) and the TCP/IP internet/networking protocol suite.
On the other hand, even if not as old as the ISOC, the W3C is responsible for some protocols like HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).
"ISOC and W3C have worked together for years in a number of areas, and have deeply shared values about the Internet’s development," said Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. "Our support to the W3C in their transition efforts demonstrates ISOC's commitment to ensuring the Internet continues to be an open, global platform for innovation. What's at stake is the Internet's openness, which is a critical enabler of new products and services to billions of users worldwide."
"ISOC and W3C have a long history of cooperation and the Internet ecosystem has benefited from our shared yet independent voices," said Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director. "The W3C staff, Members, and community continue to work on making W3C more relevant and valuable to the Web and Internet communities. ISOC support will allow W3C to evolve its structure to ensure we continue to forge solid working relationships with the increasing numbers of developers and users worldwide."
Until this donation, the main mass of W3C's funding came from its members, mainly Internet-related commercial organizations or non-profit organizations. Both the ISOC and W3C have assured their supporters that they will still function and operate independently from one another, maintaining their informal collaboration. A FAQ page has been made available for other inquiries at this link.