Thread · 11 tweets · 16 Dec 2022

As you may recall: • MIT partly hosts W3C, but withdraws Dec 31 • A W3C nonprofit needs to take over on Jan 1 • MIT has assets (dues, contracts, IP…) to transfer to new W3C • I was elected to the W3C Board & in the negotiations Two weeks from cutover it's going… poorly. 🧵

On November 17 we saw terms that were unfair in that they made W3C carry the cost of MIT’s questionable accounting practices and failed to honour prior agreements, but that came with sufficient funds to support the continuation of W3C Inc.

Right before the Board's December 10-12 meeting, we received a draft contract from MIT with a worse offer. It transferred liabilities much higher than the assets that came with and significantly decreased the funds that W3C would receive.

This jeopardised the Consortium’s viability but we sought to continue negotiating in good faith and looked for options to accelerate revenue to avoid cash flow issues.

Yesterday, the Board learnt that the financial balance that MIT is offering is actually much worse than previously stated due to additional liabilities that MIT has only just informed us of.

Except with a drastic reduction in staff, W3C would not have enough money to make it to the end of January based on the proposed agreement. And even then it would be unlikely to make it through Q1.

At this point it looks like we will not have an operational W3C nonprofit on Jan 1. Every Director will vote their conscience, but it seems likely that the asset transfer will be rejected, leaving MIT responsible for its contracts with W3C Members (for which they have paid).

We are actively figuring out how to re-hire the W3C/MIT staff so that we can continue operating in the new year. I think the fact that MIT is holding people's jobs hostage over the holidays isn't lost on anyone.

If the nonprofit doesn't get the funds MIT owes us, we will progressively have to start transferring Members in the Americas to the other hosts in the EU, Japan, and China.

I'd be curious to see the face of US officials when they find out that American companies now have to participate in Web governance abroad. The geopolitics of standards are… interesting.

At any rate, creative ideas to fix this situation are welcome. The Board is continuing to work towards a solution. I just thought that the Web community should know where things stand. I'll keep you posted.