
Wikimedia Foundation Joins the World Wide Web Consortium - jmsflknr
https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/03/28/joining-the-world-wide-web-consortium/
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paulirish
I believe this is less significant than the headline would imply (and some may
expect).

An engineer on their Performance team pushed for this presumably to more
actively contribute to the development of WebPerf APIs.
[https://twitter.com/fullstackjerk/status/1111299749775396864](https://twitter.com/fullstackjerk/status/1111299749775396864)

Personally, I've seen Wikimedia as one of the most mature organizations when
it comes to performance--they know and measure their RUM (real user metrics)
data well, and experiment with newer standards (like priority hints) to
provide feedback to the standards process.

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jopsen
Well, more W3C members with values like WikiMedia is not a bad thing :)

Not that W3C makes many controversial specs :)

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salutonmundo
EME is the only one I can think of. Which seems like something that Wikimedia
would oppose (?)

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jopsen
Exactly ;)

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tuukkah
I hope Wikimedia Foundation can act as a balancing force against corporate
interests inside W3C. I wouldn't expect the membership to tie the foundation's
hands in any way.

Wikimedia has already enabled W3C to have a bigger positive impact: before
Wikidata, I hadn't seen much practical use for Semantic Web technologies such
as SPARQL, and now we're here:
[https://query.wikidata.org/](https://query.wikidata.org/)

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tannhaeuser
I don't know what Wikimedia expects specifically from becoming a member at
this point, but there's nothing wrong in showing support (via financial
contributions) for standards on the web _per se_ I guess.

Seems like W3C can use all the money it gets as there's not much activity in
web standardization these days, with core efforts being taken elsewhere. Maybe
that's even a good thing after 25 years of attempting to shoehorn HTML/DOM
into an application scene graph. W3C's ongoing efforts with HTML 5.3, SVG 2,
Payment, SOLID, etc. are all stalled as it seems, with only the CSS WGs
pushing forward. Not that there aren't areas that could benefit from
standardization. For example, I can see an emerging need of a standard for
copyright and privacy policy metadata (or even enforcement) in light of recent
EU legislature.

Question is if W3C is the right organization to take this to, whether its
organizational structure with paid memberships is a good fit, and whether it
has good standing and authority as organization for standardization.

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smush
I'm pleased to read this. This is like the Bajorans and the Vulcans joining
forces to fight for freedom in the Mirror Universe.

But I thought 'everyone' hates the W3C and instead prefers WHATWG? Does having
the Wikimedia Foundation join W3C only count as a nominal change rather than
affecting the development of new technologies like SOLID, Semantic Web, and so
on?

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DaiPlusPlus
Opinions of the W3C normalised after they adopted WHATG’s HTML5 spec. I
haven’t seen much following of other WHATG projects besides HTML5.

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nsajko
Kind of disappointing to see so much fanboyism of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Try reading up on hr.wikipedia.org (the Croatian Wikipedia), which is run by
illiterate Nazis (and it shows).

Or maybe something more directly related to the WMF, like the research by
Gregory Kohs: [https://wikipediocracy.com/2014/07/06/look-whos-visiting-
the...](https://wikipediocracy.com/2014/07/06/look-whos-visiting-the-wmf/)

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cremp
Why on earth would a company that actually makes a difference join a glorified
media company that has DRM rules written by the exact companies that would
benefit?

Honestly asking, why is Wikimedia joining W3C a good thing? If anything, I
think, it forces Wikimedia's hand to cave when the DRM pressure hits again.

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ravenstine
Isn't that kind of a moot point now that WASM would allow for effective DRM?
Also, wasn't DRM proposed 6+ years ago? Meanwhile, WHATWG is run by Google,
Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla. Would you feel the same if Wikimedia decided to
join WHATWG instead of W3C?

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geofft
> _WASM would allow for effective DRM?_

This doesn't make sense to me - obfuscated code that is handed over to people
to decompile isn't "effective" DRM. "Effective" DRM uses things like
physically tamper-resistant chips and remote attestation (Chrome OS has a
pretty nice implementation of this with TPMs, IIRC). And it's not like
obfuscated code on the web is new with wasm; obfuscated JavaScript has been
around forever.

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0815test
I'm disappointed and concerned by this. The Wikimedia Foundation has long had
a policy of ensuring that their projects use free and DRM-unencumbered formats
to make their content available to the broadest possible audience, whereas W3C
is now supporting the notion that DRM-encumbered media (in other words, media
that is, _by design_ , made permanently inaccessible outside of some
proprietary and easily-monopolized HW/SW combination) can somehow be part of
the "open" Web.

