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"An Open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it not only at the application level but even at the server level. Synaptris have been pioneering in this field of open source application and they have constantly working in expanding their partners and VARs across different domains. The partnership managers for rest of APAC Mr. Purshotaman Mr. Vimal Balan have been doing a fantastic job in scuttling around for partners and have indeed proved to be a valuble asset to synaptris" --- Glen Folkes, Director - CRI TECH. Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ... The word standard has several meanings: Originally, standard referred to a conspicuous object used as a rallying point in battle. ...

The terms "open" and "standard" have a wide range of meanings associated with their usage. The term "open" is sometimes restricted to royalty-free technologies while the term "standard" is sometimes restricted to technologies approved by formalized committees that are open to participation by all interested parties and operate on a consensus basis.

Some definitions of the term "open standard" permit patent holders to impose "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalty fees and other licensing terms on implementers and/or users of the standard. For example, the rules for standards published by the major internationally recognized standards bodies such as the ITU, ISO, and IEC permit requiring patent licensing fees for implementation. However, the definitions of the European Union and Danish government forbid open standards to require fees for use. Permitting such license fees is controversial, because these tend to forbid implementation as free/open source software and discriminate against those who do not hold those patents. Many definitions of the term "open standard" specifically forbid any such fees. Reasonable and Non Discriminatory Licensing (RAND) is a term for a type of licensing typically used during standardisation processes. ... The International Telecommunication Union (ITU; French: Union internationale des télécommunications, Spanish: Unión Internacional de Telecomunicaciones) is an international organization established to standardize and regulate international radio and telecommunications. ... The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards bodies. ... The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is an international standards organization dealing with electrical, electronic and related technologies. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... ...

The term "open standard" is sometimes coupled with "open source" with the idea that a standard is not truly open if it does not have a complete free/open source implementation available.

Open standards which specify formats are sometimes referred to as open formats. An open format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a non-proprietary standards organization, and free of legal restrictions on use. ...

Many specifications that are sometimes referred to as standards are proprietary and only available under restrictive contract terms (if they can be obtained at all) from the organization that owns the copyright on the specification. As such these specifications are not considered to be Open.

Specific definitions of an open standard

ITU-T definition

The ITU-T, a standards development organization (SDO) that is one of the three sectors of the ITU (a specialized agency of the United Nations) has a TSB director's Ad Hoc group on IPR that produced the following definition in March 2005, which the ITU-T uses for its purposes [1]: The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. ... A standards organization, also sometimes referred to as a standards body, a standards development organization or SDO (depending on what is being referenced), is any entity whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise maintaining standards that address the interests of a wide base of... This article is about the location. ... The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ...

The ITU-T has a long history of open standards development. However, recently some different external sources have attempted to define the term "Open Standard" in a variety of different ways. In order to avoid confusion, the ITU-T uses for its purpose the term "Open Standards" per the following definition:

"Open Standards" are standards made available to the general public and are developed (or approved) and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. "Open Standards" facilitate interoperability and data exchange among different products or services and are intended for widespread adoption.

Other elements of "Open Standards" include, but are not limited to:

• Collaborative process – voluntary and market driven development (or approval) following a transparent consensus driven process that is reasonably open to all interested parties.
• Reasonably balanced – ensures that the process is not dominated by any one interest group.
• Due process - includes consideration of and response to comments by interested parties.
• Intellectual property rights (IPRs) – IPRs essential to implement the standard to be licensed to all applicants on a worldwide, non-discriminatory basis, either (1) for free and under other reasonable terms and conditions or (2) on reasonable terms and conditions (which may include monetary compensation). Negotiations are left to the parties concerned and are performed outside the SDO.
• Quality and level of detail – sufficient to permit the development of a variety of competing implementations of interoperable products or services. Standardized interfaces are not hidden, or controlled other than by the SDO promulgating the standard.
• Publicly available – easily available for implementation and use, at a reasonable price. Publication of the text of a standard by others is permitted only with the prior approval of the SDO.
• On-going support – maintained and supported over a long period of time.

The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. ... A standards organization, also sometimes referred to as a standards body, a standards development organization or SDO (depending on what is being referenced), is any entity whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise maintaining standards that address the interests of a wide base of...

European Union definition

In its "European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services" (Version 1.0, 2004), the European Union adopted the following definition:

• The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
• The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
• The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
• There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.

A non-profit organization (abbreviated NPO, or non-profit or not-for-profit) is an organization whose primary objective is to support an issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes, without concern for monetary profit. ...

Danish government definition

The Danish government in the 2004 document "Definitions of Open Standards" has attempted to make a definition of open standards, which also is used in pan-European software development projects. It states:

• An open standard is accessible to everyone free of charge (i.e. there is no discrimination between users, and no payment or other considerations are required as a condition of use of the standard)
• An open standard of necessity remains accessible and free of charge (i.e. owners renounce their options, if indeed such exist, to limit access to the standard at a later date, for example, by committing themselves to openness during the remainder of a possible patent's life)
• An open standard is accessible free of charge and documented in all its details (i.e. all aspects of the standard are transparent and documented, and both access to and use of the documentation is free)

Bruce Perens' definition

One of the most popular definitions of the term "open standard", as measured by Google ranking, is the one developed by Bruce Perens. His definition lists a set of principles that must be met by an open standard: Bruce Perens is a prominent figure in the open source movement and to some extent in the free software movement. ...

1. Availability: Open Standards are available for all to read and implement.
2. Maximize End-User Choice: Open Standards create a fair, competitive market for implementations of the standard. They do not lock the customer in to a particular vendor or group.
3. No Royalty: Open Standards are free for all to implement, with no royalty or fee. Certification of compliance by the standards organization may involve a fee.
4. No Discrimination: Open Standards and the organizations that administer them do not favor one implementor over another for any reason other than the technical standards compliance of a vendor’s implementation. Certification organizations must provide a path for low and zero-cost implementations to be validated, but may also provide enhanced certification services.
5. Extension or Subset: Implementations of Open Standards may be extended, or offered in subset form. However, certification organizations may decline to certify subset implementations, and may place requirements upon extensions (see Predatory Practices).
6. Predatory Practices: Open Standards may employ license terms that protect against subversion of the standard by embrace-and-extend tactics. The licenses attached to the standard may require the publication of reference information for extensions, and a license for all others to create, distribute, and sell software that is compatible with the extensions. An Open Standard may not otherwise prohibit extensions.

Examples of open standards

System:

• GSM (a mobile communications system specified by 3GPP)

Hardware: The Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM (original acronym: Groupe Spécial Mobile) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

• ISA (a specification by IBM for plug-in boards to IBM-architecture PCs, later standardized by the IEEE)
• PCI (a specification by Intel Corporation for plug-in boards to IBM-architecture PCs)
• AGP (a specification by Intel Corporation for plug-in boards to IBM-architecture PCs)

Software: This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

• HTML/XHTML (specifications of the W3C for structured hyperlinked document formatting)
• IP (a specification of the IETF for transmitting packets of data on a network - specifically, IETF RFC 791)
• TCP (a specification of the IETF for implementing streams of data on top of IP - specifically, IETF RFC 793)
• PDF/X (a specification by Adobe Systems Incorporated for formatted documents, later approved by ISO as ISO 15930-1:2001 [2])
• OpenDocument (a specification by OASIS for office documents, approved by ISO as ISO/IEC 26300)

Security HTML, short for Hypertext Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for the creation of web pages. ... The Extensible HyperText Markup Language, or XHTML, is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but with a syntax that conforms to XML syntax. ... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a consortium that produces standards—recommendations, as they call them—for the World Wide Web. ... The Internet Protocol (IP) is a data-oriented protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork. ... The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is charged with developing and promoting Internet standards. ... The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the core protocols of the Internet protocol suite, often simply referred to as TCP/IP. Using TCP, applications on networked hosts can create connections to one another, over which they can exchange streams of data using Stream Sockets. ... The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is charged with developing and promoting Internet standards. ... The Internet Protocol (IP) is a data-oriented protocol used for communicating data across a packet-switched internetwork. ... Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for desktop publishing use. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... ISO has many meanings: Iso is the stem of the Latin transliteration of the Greek word ίσος (ísos, meaning equal). The iso- prefix in English derives from this and means equality or similarity. ... OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is a document file format used for describing electronic documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. ... The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) is a global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business and web service standards. ... ISO has many meanings: Iso is the stem of the Latin transliteration of the Greek word ίσος (ísos, meaning equal). The iso- prefix in English derives from this and means equality or similarity. ...

• ISM3 (a specification by ISM3 Consortium for information security management)

Patents

In 2002 and 2003 the controversy about using reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) licensing for the use of patented technology in web standards increased. Bruce Perens and others have argued that the use of patents restricts who can implement a standard to those able or willing to pay for the use of the patented technology. The requirement to pay some small amount per user, is often an insurmountable problem for free/open source software implementations which can be redistributed by anyone. Royalty free (RF) licensing is generally the only possible license for free/open source software implementations. The GNU General Public License includes a section that enjoins anyone who distributes a program released under the GPL from enforcing patents on subsequent users of the software or derivative works. For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Reasonable and Non Discriminatory Licensing (RAND) is a term for a type of licensing typically used during standardisation processes. ... How to obtain a amature radio licence differs from country to country. ... The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a consortium that produces standards—recommendations, as they call them—for the World Wide Web. ... Bruce Perens is a prominent figure in the open source movement and to some extent in the free software movement. ... A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to a patentee (the inventor or assignee) for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which... This article is about engineering. ... The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ...

One result of this controversy was that many governments (including the Danish government singly and the EU collectively) specifically affirmed that "open standards" required royalty-free licenses. Some standards organizations, such as the W3C, modified their processes to essentially only permit royalty-free licensing. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a consortium that produces standards—recommendations, as they call them—for the World Wide Web. ...

Patents for software, formulas and algorithms currently allowed in the US but not in the EU. The European Patent Convention | Article 52 paragraph (2)(c) expressly prohibits algorithms, business methods and software. The US has only allowed them since 1989 and there has been growing controversy in recent years as to either the benefit or feasibility.

Quotes

• EU Commissioner Erkki Liikanen: "Open standards are important to help create interoperable and affordable solutions for everybody. They also promote competition by setting up a technical playing field that is level to all market players. This means lower costs for enterprises and, ultimately, the consumer." (World Standards Day, 14 October 2003) [3]

• Jorma Ollila, Chairman of Nokia's Board of Directors: "... Open standards and platforms create a foundation for success. They enable interoperability of technologies and encourage innovativeness and healthy competition, which in turn increases consumer choice and opens entirely new markets," (Nokia Foundation Award to Mårten Mickos, 2006)

Erkki Liikanen (born September 19, 1950) is a Finnish politician. ... October 14 is the 287th day of the year (288th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

See also

• Open system (computing)
• Open format
• OpenDocument - an open standard for office document formats
• Open specifications
• Standard (disambiguation)
• Conformity assessment
• Standardisation
• Standards organization
• International standard
• Vendor lock-in
• Embrace, extend and extinguish
• Network effect
• Free software
• Legitimacy of standards

Open systems are computer systems that provide either interoperability, portability, or freedom from proprietary standards, depending on users perspective. ... An open format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a non-proprietary standards organization, and free of legal restrictions on use. ... OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is a document file format used for describing electronic documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Standard can refer to: // Standardization is the process of establishing a technical standard among competing entities. ... Conformity assessment is any activity to determine, directly or indirectly, that a process, product, or service meets relevant standards and fulfills relevant requirements. ... Standardisation or standardization (sometimes abbreviated s13n), in the context related to technologies and industries, is the process of establishing a technical standard among competing entities in a market, where this will bring benefits without hurting competition. ... A standards organization, also sometimes referred to as a standards body, a standards development organization or SDO (depending on what is being referenced), is any entity whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise maintaining standards that address the interests of a wide base of... Standards are produced by many organizations, some for internal usage only, others for use by a groups of people, groups of companies, or a subsection of an industry. ... In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, lock-in, or the Pottersville pattern, is a situation in which a customer is so dependent on a vendor for products and services that he or she cannot move to another vendor without substantial switching costs, real and/or... Microsoft, like many other companies in their heyday, has publicly stated that it aims to embrace and extend popular standards and existing work. ... A network effect is a characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer which depends on the number of other customers who own the good or are users of the service. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... Legitimate standards are, to some critics, only those standards whose documentation can be downloaded free-of-charge, and which can be implemented without royalties or other restrictions. ...

External links

• Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE) Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE)
• Open Standards Project Management Open Standards Project Management Method open standard
• Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, Open ePolicy Group, Roadmap for Open ICT Ecosystems
• Bruce Perens: Open Standards: Principles and Practice
• Ken Krechmer: The Principles of Open Standards
• Bob Sutor: Open Standards vs. Open Source: How to think about software, standards, and Service Oriented Architecture at the beginning of the 21st century
• Davide Cerri and Alfonso Fuggetta: Open Standards, Open Formats, and Open Source
• European Commission: Valoris report on Open Document Formats
• The New York Times: Plan by 13 Nations Urges Open Technology Standards
• European Commission: The definition for Open Standard
• UNDP-APDIP International Open Source Network: Free/Open Source Software: Open Standards Primer
• OpenStandards.net: An Open Standards Portal
• Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes! develops a unified definition of "open standard" from multiple sources, then applies it to a particular standard
• Open Source Initiative: Open Standard Requirement for Software