# WHAT IS OPEN-WEB ?

The Open Web Platform (OWP) is a collection of Web technologies developed by the World Wide Web Consortium and other Web standardization bodies such as the Unicode Consortium, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and Ecma International.
It is the umbrella term introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium, and in 2011 it was defined as "a platform for innovation, consolidation and cost efficiencies" by W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe.

1. DECENTRALISED
2. TRANSPERANCY
3. HACKABLE
4. OPENESS

## WHY OPEN-WEB ?

The Open Web is like something from an Arthur C. Clarke science fiction story: its a globe spanning, hypertext network containing billions of documents, conversations, and applications, used by a huge cross section of society. Who would have thought it ever would have been successful or stayed as open as it has? It's not controlled by any one government or company. Our historical closeness to the web creates a kind of myopia, where we can't see how amazing it is. It's a billion Library of Alexandria's dropped into our laps.

### HOW CAN WE SUPPORT OPEN-WEB ?

If we agree that the Open Web is important, how do we create a way to update the web and keep it relevant? The U.S. Constitution, for example, includes special provisions to evolve itself and stay relevant. Even with its warts, the U.S. is now the world's oldest and continuous republic. The web's existing update mechanisms just don't work. It takes years for new features to go from proposal to show up across enough browsers to be used consistently; this is a recipe for fail if we want the web to exist as a long-term entity, rather than a one-hit wonder.