molly.com
Thursday 11 December 2008
W3C Validators in Jeopardy
As many folks who follow the W3C are aware, financial and bureaucratic issues have challenged the organization for many years. But one thing the W3C has held steady with is its validators, which are regularly and freely utilized by Web designers and developers world over.
It’s come to pass that the funding necessary to maintain and grow validation services at the W3C has become overwhelming to the W3C’s operational budget. As such, the validators are in jeopardy.
But there are ways to help, and this post is a call to action to do just that.
We’ve set up a donation system to allow for a number of different donations concepts: Donor, Sponsored, Community Fundraising, and in the spirit of open source and standards, plenty of opportunity to give of your time and knowledge to assist with the work.
It works like this:
- Donor: A donor is anyone interested in donating money to the cause. A micropayment of 1.00 USD if the validator “saves your day” can be very helpful!
- Sponsor: A sponsor is a company or organization that donates to the W3C
- Community Fundraising: There are two badges available at the W3C that link to the fundraising page. If you support the validator, encourage others by placing a badge on your site and blogging about the topic
- Time Not Money: If you cannot or do not wish to donate money, your time is as or even more valuable. There are opportunities to help the W3C maintain and grow validation services.
That we’ve had the use of validation tools via the W3C for so long and without cost has been a significant component in the teaching and evangelism surrounding Web standards and best practices. To lose these tools would impact that message, not to mention take a certain amount of quality assurance away from the process.
For more information about the validator services concern or to become involved, please visit the W3C Validator Donation Program page.
Filed under: announcement, community, professional, society, software, standards, w3c
Posted by: Molly | 12:37 | Comments (85)
thank
very nice
very very nice
thanks
thanks for share
thankss for share
Thanks for this great article!
thanks you mean
great article. thanx
thanks mean
beatiful article.
Thanks for the heads-up.
I hope the work on the validators ceases. They are a pain in the butt and sites work oerfectly well without W3C validation. Validation is not the panacea to web design – websites earn $$$’s and rank on Google and work on multiple devices without validation. Validation is a smokescreen.
Seems to me they could offer a ‘pro’ subscription model or something. Personally, I (and all developers in my office) use this regularly for work. There is no reason our office can’t afford to chip in a bit. I also use this in my own freelance work, which helps me to earn money so, again, I could chip in and pay for some of it.
thanks…
Thanks for your thinking, Donate is the very important for improve project. So i think this really important…
Thanks again…
great article. thanx
beatiful article, thanks
Perhaps some of the ‘cloud’ service providers would donate some cpu-time/bandwidth to suppport the standards their business models are built on?
Thanks for this great article!
Perhaps some of the ‘cloud’ service providers would donate some cpu-time/bandwidth to suppport the standards their business models are built on?
thanks molly good article
thanks
i hate w3c because i doont wanna make corrections to my site , i want use just my browser
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Thanks Molly, right article.
Is this actually an indication that the W3C itself is in wider financial trouble? Because if it’s not, then shame on them.
thaks molly. very good.
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tanks very good
Interesting, I wouldn’t have thought they were short of cash!
This doesn’t seem like such a difficult problem to solve though.
I agree with others in that I would be inclined to try and keep up a small for-profit subscription validation service running (and just price it at whatever is needed to make it viable). It’s useful enough to me I would pay a small annual fee for the convince of a service someone else runs (rather than having to use a local application or run my own more basic validation service).
Free, easy-to-use cross-platform desktop tools for validation (which, if you’ve got the validation logic, is fairly easily done) would provide a solution for those who can’t afford it or don’t want to pay. I would love to see W3C libraries for validation integrated into more software.
meyve fidanı
[...] Now, however, they do need your help. Running, hosting and updating the validators isn’t free. How this can be done has already been said perfectly by Molly so I shall quote her instead: We’ve set up a donation system to allow for a number of different donations concepts: Donor, Sponsored, Community Fundraising, and in the spirit of open source and standards, plenty of opportunity to give of your time and knowledge to assist with the work. It works like this: * Donor: A donor is anyone interested in donating money to the cause. A micropayment of 1.00 USD if the validator “saves your day” can be very helpful! * Sponsor: A sponsor is a company or organization that donates to the W3C * Community Fundraising: There are two badges available at the W3C that link to the fundraising page. If you support the validator, encourage others by placing a badge on your site and blogging about the topic * Time Not Money: If you cannot or do not wish to donate money, your time is as or even more valuable. There are opportunities to help the W3C maintain and grow validation services. – http://www.molly.com/2008/12/11/w3c-validators-in-jeopardy/ [...]
[...] Now, however, they do need your help. Running, hosting and updating the validators isn’t free. How this can be done has already been said perfectly by Molly so I shall quote her instead: We’ve set up a donation system to allow for a number of different donations concepts: Donor, Sponsored, Community Fundraising, and in the spirit of open source and standards, plenty of opportunity to give of your time and knowledge to assist with the work. It works like this: * Donor: A donor is anyone interested in donating money to the cause. A micropayment of 1.00 USD if the validator “saves your day” can be very helpful! * Sponsor: A sponsor is a company or organization that donates to the W3C * Community Fundraising: There are two badges available at the W3C that link to the fundraising page. If you support the validator, encourage others by placing a badge on your site and blogging about the topic * Time Not Money: If you cannot or do not wish to donate money, your time is as or even more valuable. There are opportunities to help the W3C maintain and grow validation services. – http://www.molly.com/2008/12/11/w3c-validators-in-jeopardy/ [...]
[...] Now, however, they do need your help. Running, hosting and updating the validators isn’t free. How this can be done has already been said perfectly by Molly so I shall quote her instead: We’ve set up a donation system to allow for a number of different donations concepts: Donor, Sponsored, Community Fundraising, and in the spirit of open source and standards, plenty of opportunity to give of your time and knowledge to assist with the work. It works like this: * Donor: A donor is anyone interested in donating money to the cause. A micropayment of 1.00 USD if the validator “saves your day” can be very helpful! * Sponsor: A sponsor is a company or organization that donates to the W3C * Community Fundraising: There are two badges available at the W3C that link to the fundraising page. If you support the validator, encourage others by placing a badge on your site and blogging about the topic * Time Not Money: If you cannot or do not wish to donate money, your time is as or even more valuable. There are opportunities to help the W3C maintain and grow validation services. – http://www.molly.com/2008/12/11/w3c-validators-in-jeopardy/ [...]
Thanks. Great Article.
I would hate to see the validators disappear. I have been using them for years and find them an essential part of my site testing.
If you can’t be bothered to check your site/sites are correct then you shouldn’t be programming or selling, as sites should be all encompassing and not just for the browsers that are mainstream. Inclusion is vital for everyone!