Datasheet
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Information Sources and Documentation
Standards and Specifications
There are various sources that provide information about standards or
specifications.
http://www.w3.org The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is cer-
tainly one of the best-known standards organizations. It was founded
in October 1994 by TIM BERNERS-LEE and concentrates on standard-
izing web technologies. W3C promotes the dissemination of open,
license-free, and manufacturer-independent specifications, such as
HTML, XHTML, and XML. These web standards are developed in a
four-stage process in working groups and are presented to the public as
W3C recommendations (REC).
http://www.oasis-open.org OASIS (Organization for the Advance-
ment of Structured Information Standards) is an international consor-
tium specializing in the development of standards for web security,
e-business, business transactions, logistics, and interoperability be-
tween various markets.
http://www.ietf.org The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is
an internationally active cooperative of researchers, network design-
ers, suppliers, and users. It concentrates on the development of Inter-
net architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet by means of
protocols.
Every IETF standard is published as an RFC (Request for Comments)
and is available free-of-charge. There are six types of RFC: proposed
standards, draft standards, Internet standards, experimental proto-
cols, information documents, and historic standards. Only the first
three (proposed, draft, and full) are IETF standards in the narrower
sense (see http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1796.txt).
http://www.ieee.org The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engi-
neers (IEEE) is an organization that draws up standards in the areas
of information technology, telecommunication, medicine and health
care, transport, and others. IEEE standards are subject to a charge.
http://www.iso.org The ISO Committee (International Organiza-
tion for Standards) is the world’s largest developer of standards and
maintains a network of national standardization institutes in over 140
countries. ISO standards are subject to a charge.
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