This is a big deal:
The W3C, founded in 1994 by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, has quit X and declared the fediverse to be their primary social media channel. Follow them at: @w3c
The future of the open web is .. the open web.
@eloquence why is it?
W3C does not stand for an open web. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encrypted_Media_Extensions
@eloquence ever tried participating in the W3C standardization process? Be rich or go home!
@fluepke @eloquence There are certainly grounds to critique the W3C, but we are writing these messages using ActivityPub, a W3C standard that has definitely advanced the open web and manifestly is not dominated by “rich” interests.
@LiberalArtist @fluepke @eloquence
Like all standards bodies... it's not a body at all, it's a place.
AcivityPub is group of nerds over there by the stack of empty pizza boxes. EME by that group of scary looking corporate dudes standing around that water cooler.
SVG is this play pen of lego bricks that someone has thoughtfully glued together. This is where we play. 
@LiberalArtist @eloquence W3C also made Decentralized Identifiers (self-sovereign identity blockchain bullshit) a "web standard" that the European Union will likely force upon us with the EUDI-Wallet.
In Germany, @Lilith and I caused the #IDWallet to fail after some basic IT security research.
This technology will discriminate minorities, enforce borders on the internet and be used for mining PII.
It is the opposite of an open web.
I got really upset observing some blockchain startup hipsters with the necessary money hijack the W3C standardization procedure to give their terrible stupid ideas the legitimacy of a "web standard".
And there is nothing you, as an individual, can do. As an individual you can neither read the WG's mailinglist nor can you participate in any discussions … or you pay the money and become a member^w lobbyist.
That sucks and is undemocratic!
The W3C is just the capitalist internet's henchman. And they're very open about this. It's right there in the first sentence of their mission statement:
> W3C is leading the Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web.
@fluepke @LiberalArtist @eloquence We can totally criticise the W3C in many, many areas but let's clarify a few important things:
- A ton of WG/CG mailing lists are open: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ It is also possible to participate there.
- Many WG/CGs use public GH repos and one can make "substantial contributions" by becoming an Invited Expert. This system is far from perfect, obviously, but it does exist.
- Many of the W3C CGs are open and everyone can join.
With that out of the way, can you reference the WG or CG you're talking about which denied public access to the mailing list and severely restricted individual contributions?
Edit: You're probably referring to https://www.w3.org/2019/did-wg Their mailing list is publicly available here: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-did-wg/ Spec repo is here: https://github.com/w3c/did-core and creating issues is allowed (this is how I got invited to another group btw).
@f09fa681 try getting invited (and not thrown out immediately) as an expert after just destroying their first large-scale nationwide DID roll-out. Good luck.
@fluepke If that doesn't make you an expert, what does? Have you tried?
Can't speak for the DID people because I dealt with another WG but I can tell you, they weren't exactly known to be very open either but I still got invited. Sometimes it's nice to be surprised. Not all people who work in such WGs are mindless sycophants which close themselves off towards critics, even if they work for a company or towards a goal with questionable ethics.
@fluepke @LiberalArtist @eloquence @Lilith I wish, Mastodon used DID instead of a location-based identity with vendor lock-in.
@functionalscript use your DID how and where you wish, but do not implement state issued identities with it. There’s better technology for that, which prevents over-identification and all the other problems to it.
@fluepke I don't argue with that. A state is centralized, so it doesn't require DIDs. But I wouldn't blame W3C for having DID standards. IMHO, DIDs are long overdue in the industry. If we had DID for twitter accounts, we wouldn't need to lose all our data and contacts. Data and identities shouldn't belong to social network providers and servers.