Gamalielsson and Lundell Journal of Internet Services Journal of Internet Services and Applications (2017) 8:5 DOI 10.1186/s13174-017-0056-1 and Applications RESEARCH Open Access On organisational involvement and collaboration in W3C standards through editorship Jonas Gamalielsson* and Björn Lundell Abstract Over time, a number of open standards have been developed and implemented in software for addressing a number of challenges, such as lock-in, interoperability and longevity of software systems and associated digital artefacts. An understanding of organisational involvement and collaboration in standardisation is important for informing any future policy and organisational decisions concerning involvement in standardisation. The overarching goal of the study is to establish how organisations contribute to open standards development through editorship. Specifically, the focus is on open standards development in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Through an analysis of editorship for all W3C recommendations we contribute novel findings concerning organisational involvement and collaboration, and highlight contributions from different types of organisations and countries. We make five principal contributions. First, we establish an overall characterisation of organisational involvement in W3C standardisation. Second, we report on organisational involvement in W3C standardisation over time. Third, we establish how different organisations, organisation types, and countries are involved in W3C technologies. Fourth, we report on organisational involvement in relation to standard development time. Fifth, we establish how organisations collaborate in W3C standardisation through social network analysis. Keywords: Organisations, Involvement, Collaboration, W3C, Standards, Editorship 1 Introduction Many ICT standards are implemented in software Over time, a number of Information and Communica- (including several open source implementations), and in tion Technology (ICT) standards have been developed some cases open source implementations have evolved and deployed for addressing a number of challenges into standards (e.g. [1, 2]). However, previous research intheareaofsoftwaresystems,includinginteroper- shows that some standards may not be implemented in ability and longevity of systems [30]. In the area of open source software due to inability to clarify condi- ICT standardisation there are a number of efforts and tions for use of standard essential patents which are different (sometimes conflicting) interests amongst controlled by some of the organisations contributing to stakeholders involved. Previous research shows that development of those specific standards [32]. “companies are the most important and typically the Challenges for ICT standardisation have also been most powerful stakeholders in (ICT) standards recognised by policy makers and organisations devel- setting” [23].Further,ithasalso been argued that oping standards. For example, the ICT rolling plan is “the absence of important players may lead to inad- an ongoing effort within the EU which recognises the equate standards” [22]. In addition, previous research importance of organisational involvement in standardisa- reports that some companies “aim to control the tion for innovation [11] and there are also policy initiatives strategy of” a standardisation organisation, whereas within the EU which recognise the importance of open other merely participate [23]. standards [10]. Similarly, there are a number of national policy initiatives, such as the national policy for open stan- dards in the U.K. [42, 43]. Further, amongst organisations * Correspondence: [email protected] developing standards there are also efforts for how to University of Skövde, P.O. Box 408SE-54128 Skövde, Sweden © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Gamalielsson and Lundell Journal of Internet Services and Applications (2017) 8:5 Page 2 of 26 improve ICT standardisation such as initiatives for consid- stakeholders and stakeholder groups in area of ICT. ering open source work practices in standardisation ad- Amongst practitioners, the standard concept often dressed in recent workshops organised by ETSI1 cause confusion in discussions and there is often a lack (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and of clarity concerning exactly what is referred to when ANSI2 (American National Standards Institute). the term “standard” isusedintheICT-area(seee.g. From this it is evident that understanding organisational [29]). The first use of the standard term dates back to involvement and collaboration in standardisation is a chal- 1138 AD when “akingwastheonlycreatorofastand- lenge and is important for informing any future policy and ard” ([26], p. 25). organisational decisions on involvement in standardisa- Today, there are many different types of organisa- tion. To address this challenge the overarching goal of tions and consortia developing and promoting stan- the study is to establish how organisations contribute to dards in a number of different contexts. At open standards development through editorship. Specific- international level, the International Organization for ally, the focus is on standards development in W3C. Standardisation (ISO) promotes many different stan- Through an analysis of editorship for all W3C standards dards in the area of ICT. Similarly, at national level, we investigate organisational involvement and collabor- there are a number of organisations promoting na- ation, and highlight involvement in development of stan- tional standards, such as the BSI which is the oldest dards by different types of organisations and countries for national standardisation organisation being established headquarter of each organisation. We make five principal in 1901. As the National Standards Body of the UK contributions. First, we establish an overall characterisa- they promote “British standards”. Overall, there exist tion of organisational involvement in W3C standardisa- hundreds of standards bodies and fora [9] that tion. Second, we report on organisational involvement in develop, promote, and maintain standards. Numerous W3C standardisation over time. Third, we establish how stakeholders that represent a range of different orga- different organisations, organisation types, and countries nisations (including individual ICT-companies, vendor are involved in W3C technologies. Fourth,wereporton consortia, user organisations, and public sector orga- organisational involvement in relation to standard devel- nisations) are involved in and affected by standards at opment time. Fifth, we establish how organisations collab- international, national, and local levels. In essence, orate in W3C standardisation. standards are in many cases associated with non- We focus on W3C standardisation since it has mandatory agreements between different stakeholders been claimed that W3C standards constitute an and organisations. For example, the BSI (British Stan- exemplar of open standards [13] and are widely dards Institution) states that: deployed in software systems. All W3C standards are written in English and all communication is in “a standard is an agreed, repeatable way of doing English. In fact, W3C has adopted a work practice something. It is a published document that contains a inspired by OSS (Open Source Software) develop- technical specification or other precise criteria ment [18, 33], and work according to an open model designed to be used consistently as a rule, guideline, or with respect to intellectual property rights. This, in turn, definition” [6]. facilitates participation from different types of companies and other organisations. There is limited knowledge Besides formally recognised standardisation organi- concerning details on organisational involvement and sations (such as ISO, BSI, and other corresponding collaboration in open standards development. To the national organisations), there are also other organisa- best of our knowledge, this study contributes novel tions focusing on specific areas. Examples of such findings from the first comprehensive analysis of organisations are the World Wide Web Consortium organisational involvement (through editorship) in all (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task force standards provided by W3C. (IETF) that work on developing and promoting The rest of this paper is organised as follows. We standards that relate to their specific expertise. In present a background (Section 2). Thereafter we addition, many standards are being developed and present research approach (Section 3), results and promoted by different consortia (e.g. European Computer analysis (Section 4), discussion (Section 5), followed Manufacturers Association (ECMA) and Organization for by conclusions and future work (Section 6). the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)) in the area of ICT. Standards from some of 2 Background these consortia have been broadly adopted and have also 2.1 On standardisation and standardisation organisations been recognised and adopted by ISO for publication as Over the years, the term “standard” has been used formal ISO-standards. It is important