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Web Standards and Organisations
ECMA International
ECMA International (previously known as the European Computer Manufacturers Association) is an industry association dedicated to the standardisation of information and communication systems. Its work has included a large number of communication standards, ECMAScript (the standard version of JavaScript) and the C# programming language.
 www.ecma-international.org/
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
ISO is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies that creates standards and enforces their application. Over 13,000 standards exist, covering most industries.
www.iso.ch/
Specialist Interest Group in Software Testing (SIGIST)
SIGIST is one of the specialist groups of the British Computer Society, and promotes awareness of testing, competence in the practical application of testing in the real world, provides a forum for testers, and encourages research. The group also undertakes work on testing standards, organises regular conferences and has a library of testing-related publications.
www.sigist.org.uk/
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
ICANN is the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions.
www.icann.org/
The Unicode Consortium
Unicode is a character set that has been designed to provide a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform, program or language. The use of Unicode greatly simplifies the transfer of data between platforms, particularly the multi-tiered architectures found on the Internet. The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organisation founded to develop, extend and promote use of this standard.
www.unicode.org/
The Web Standards Project (WaSP)
WaSP works with browser companies and authoring tool makers to promote core web standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any site published on the Web.
The organisation was formed in response to the 'browser wars' in the 1990s during which non-adherence to standards and proprietary extensions to those standards resulted in significant (and deliberate) incompatibility between the market-leading browsers. Standards-compliance has since improved but WaSP's work continues as new technologies and browser vendors come to the market.
www.webstandards.org/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
The W3C develops interoperable technologies to lead the Web to its full potential. Their work includes specifications for technologies such as HTTP, HTML, XML, XHTML and CSS, guidelines for issues such as privacy and disabled accessibility, tools such as code generators and validators, and software such as the Amaya browser and the Jigsaw webserver.
The W3C does not have the power to enforce these standards, but they are developed by industry-wide concensus so adoption is generally automatic.
www.w3c.org/
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