The Open Web Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and protection of specifications for emerging web technologies. The foundation follows an open source model similar to the Apache Software Foundation

Apache Software Foundation

The Apache Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation to support Apache software projects, including the Apache HTTP Server. The ASF was formed from the Apache Group and incorporated in Delaware, U.S., in June 1999.The Apache Software Foundation is a decentralized community of developers...

 (ASF). Individuals participating include Geir Magnusson, vice president and board member at Apache, and Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media and a supporter of the free software and open source movements.-Life and career:...

, CEO of O'Reilly Media

O'Reilly Media

O'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...

.

History

The Open Web Foundation was announced July 24th, 2008 at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON)

O'Reilly Open Source Convention

The O'Reilly Open Source Convention is an annual convention for the discussion of free and open source software. It is organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media and is held each summer in the United States.-Notable events:...

. Facebook has announced their support for the OWF, as well as Google, MySpace, Six Apart, Plaxo and others. Through OWF, Google and Facebook now have an appropriate venue where they can resolve their differences between Facebook Connect and OpenSocial

OpenSocial

OpenSocial is a set of common application programming interfaces for web-based social network applications, developed by Google along with MySpace and a number of other social networks.It was released November 1, 2007....

 platforms, as well as work on a standard way to have their users interact with each other. The OWF also provides the technical details, as well as policy details, on how these protocols and emerging technologies interact.

Criticism

There have been accusations made that the Open Web Foundation are bypassing the IETF

Internet Engineering Task Force

The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...

 or other standards bodies.

Industry support

According to its web site, the Open Web Foundation is supported by the following companies and organizations:

• BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
  
• Facebook
  Facebook
  Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
  
  
• Google
  Google
  Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
  
  
• Microsoft
  Microsoft
  Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
  
  
• MySpace
  MySpace
  Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
  
  
• O'Reilly
  O'Reilly Media
  O'Reilly Media is an American media company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books and Web sites and produces conferences on computer technology topics...
  
  
• Plaxo
  Plaxo
  Plaxo is an online address book and social networking service originally founded by Sean Parker, Minh Nguyen and two Stanford engineering students, Todd Masonis and Cameron Ring...
  
  
• Six Apart
  Six Apart
  Six Apart Ltd., sometimes abbreviated 6A, is a software company known for creating the Movable Type blogware, TypePad blog hosting service, and Vox. The company also is the former owner of LiveJournal. Six Apart is headquartered in Tokyo and is planning to open a new, U.S.-based office in New York...
  
  
• Sourceforge
  SourceForge
  SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
  
  
• Vidoop
  Vidoop
  Vidoop LLC is a privately-held company based in Portland, Oregon. Its flagship product is Vidoop Secure, a login solution designed to function without traditional passwords, which Vidoop claims is resistant to brute force, keystroke logging, phishing, and some man-in-the-middle attacks...
  
  
• Yahoo

Governance

The Open Web Foundation is a membership-based organization. Members of the Foundation elect a nine person Board.

Members of the current Board, elected as of August 17, 2009:

• Brady Brim-DeForest
• Tantek Celik
  Tantek Çelik
  Tantek Çelik is a computer scientist of Turkish-American descent and was the Chief Technologist at Technorati. He is one of the principal editors of several CSS Specifications....
  
  
• DeWitt Clinton
  DeWitt Clinton
  DeWitt Clinton was an early American politician and naturalist who served as United States Senator and the sixth Governor of New York. In this last capacity he was largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal...
  
  
• Chris Messina
• David Recordon
  David Recordon
  David Recordon , aka daveman692, is an open standards advocate currently residing in San Francisco. Recordon was formerly employed as an Open Platforms Tech Lead at blogging company Six Apart...
  
  
• Lawrence Rosen
  Lawrence Rosen
  Lawrence Rosen is an attorney and computer specialist. He is a founding partner of Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a Californian technology law firm, specializing in intellectual property protection, licensing and business transactions for technology companies...
  
  
• David Rudin
• Gabe Wachob