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An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it. A technical standard is an established norm or requirement It is usually a formal document that establishes uniform engineering or technical criteria methods processes and practices

The terms "open" and "standard" have a wide range of meanings associated with their usage. The term "open" is usually 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. Royalty Free refers to a type of contract between a two entities (the licensor and licensee that is employed when licensing the rights to use content such as photographs

The definitions of the term "open standard" used by academics, the European Union and some of its member governments or parliaments such as Denmark, France, and Spain preclude open standards requiring fees for use, as does the Venezuelan Government. On the standard organisation side, the W3C ensures that its specifications can be implemented on a Royalty-Free (RF) basis.

Many definitions of the term "standard" permit patent holders to impose "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalty fees and other licensing terms on implementers and/or users of the standard. Reasonable and Non Discriminatory Licensing ( RAND) is a term for a type of Licensing typically used during Standardization processes For example, the rules for standards published by the major internationally recognized standards bodies such as the IETF[1], ISO, and IEC permit their Standards to contain specifications whose implementation will require payment of patent licensing fees (none of these organizations states that they grant "open standards", but only "standards"). The International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international Standards organization that prepares and publishes ITU has a definition of "open standard" that allows "reasonable and non-discriminatory" licensing. Reasonable and Non Discriminatory Licensing ( RAND) is a term for a type of Licensing typically used during Standardization processes

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 reference implementation available. [2]

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 Standards organization, which basically can be used and implemented by anyone

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 fully Open.

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Specific definitions of an open standard

ITU-T definition

The ITU-T is a standards development organization (SDO) that is one of the three sectors of the International Telecommunications Union (a specialized agency of the United Nations). The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector ( ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication A standards organization, standards body, standards development organization or SDO is any entity whose primary activities are developing coordinating The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security The ITU-T has a Telecommunication Standardization Bureau director's Ad Hoc group on IPR that produced the following definition in March 2005, which the ITU-T as a whole has endorsed for its purposes since November 2005 [3]:

The ITU-T has a long history of open standards development. The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector ( ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication 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-T, ITU-R, ISO, and IEC have harmonized on a common patent policy [4] under the banner of the WSC. The ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector ( ITU-T) coordinates standards for telecommunications on behalf of the International Telecommunication The ITU Radiocommunication Sector ( ITU-R) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU and is responsible for The International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international Standards organization that prepares and publishes World Standards Cooperation (WSC is an alliance of the IEC, ISO and ITU top-tier international standardization organizations Anyway, the above ITU-T definition cannot be considered also applicable in ITU-R, ISO and IEC contexts, since the Common Patent Policy [5] does not make any reference to "open standards" but only to "standards".

European Union definition

The European Union adopted the following definition in its European Interoperability Framework[6]:

USE OF OPEN STANDARDS To attain interoperability in the context of pan-European eGovernment services, guidance needs to focus on open standards. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard:

Danish government definition

The Danish government has attempted to make a definition of open standards [7], which also is used in pan-European software development projects. It states:

French law definition

The French Parliament approved a definition of "open standard" in its "Law for Confidence in the Digital Economy". [8] The definition is:[9]

Spanish law definition

A Decree passed by the Spanish Parliament [10] requires that all electronic services provided by the Spanish public administration must be based on open standards. It defines an open standard as royalty free, according to the following definition:[11]

An open standard fulfills the following conditions:

Venezuelan law definition

The Venezuelan Government approved a "free software and open standards law". [12] The decree includes the requirement that the Venezuelan public sector must use free software based on open standards, and includes a definition of open standard:[13]

Article 2: for the purposes of this Decree, it shall be understood as

k) Open standards: technical specifications, published and controlled by an organization in charge of their development, that have been accepted by the industry, available to everybody for their implementation in free software or other [type of software], promoting competitivity, interoperability and flexibility.

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. Bruce Perens is a Computer programmer and advocate in the Open source community. [14] His definition lists a set of principles that he believes must be met by an open standard:

  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. " Embrace extend and extinguish," also known as " Embrace extend and exterminate," is a phrase that the U 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.

Ken Krechmer's definition

Ken Krechmer[15] identifies ten "rights":

  1. Open Meeting
  2. Consensus
  3. Due Process
  4. Open IPR
  5. One World
  6. Open Change
  7. Open Documents
  8. Open Interface
  9. Open Use
  10. On-going Support

World Wide Web Consortium's definition

As one of the important providers of Web technology ICT Standards, notably XML, http, HTML, CSS and WAI, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) follows a process that promotes the development of high-quality standards. Information technology ( IT) as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA is "the study design development implementation support Don't change "Extensible" Hypertext Transfer Protocol ( HTTP) is a Communications protocol for the transfer of information on the Internet. HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant Markup language for Web pages It provides a means to describe the structure The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative ( WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web (WWW

The W3C process defines the following set of requirements that the provider of a technical specification must follow for that specification to qualify as an Open Standard. [16]

Digital Standards Organization definition

The Digital Standards Organization states that "an open standard must be aimed at creating unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users". [17] Its brief definition of "open standard" (or "free and open standard") is "a published specification that is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle". Its more complete definition as follows:

A key defining property is that an open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to improve upon, trust, and extend an open standard over time. "[18]

This definition is based on the EU's EIF v1 definition of "open standard", but with changes to address what it terms as "vendor capture". They believe that "Many groups and individuals have provided definitions for 'open standard' that reflect their economic interests in the standards process. We see that the fundamental conflict is between vendors who seek to capture markets and raise costs, and the market at large, which seeks freedom and lower costs. . . Vendors work hard to turn open standards into franchise standards. They work to change the statutory language so they can cloak franchise standards in the sheep's clothing of 'open standard'. A robust definition of "free and open standard" must thus take into account the direct economic conflict between vendors and the market at large. "[19]

Examples of open standards

System

Hardware

See also: Open source hardware. The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. Open source hardware refers to computer and electronic hardware that is designed in the same fashion as free and open-source Software.

File formats

See also: Open format. Industry Standard Architecture (in practice almost always shortened to ISA) was a Computer bus standard for IBM compatible computers The Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI Standard (commonly PCI) specifies a Computer bus for attaching peripheral devices to a Computer An open format is a published specification for storing digital data usually maintained by a Standards organization, which basically can be used and implemented by anyone

Protocols

Programming languages

Other

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. The Internet Protocol ( IP) is a protocol used for communicating data across a Packet-switched Internetwork using the Internet Protocol The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. The Internet Protocol ( IP) is a protocol used for communicating data across a Packet-switched Internetwork using the Internet Protocol SyncML ( Synchronization Markup Language) is the former name (currently referred to as Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization and Device Management) In computing cross-platform (also known as multi-platform) is a term used to refer to Computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented Data synchronization is the process of establishing consistency among Data on remote sources and the continuous harmonization of the data over time The SyncML Initiative Ltd was a Non-profit corporation formed by a group of companies who co-operated to produce an Open standard for Data synchronization The Open Mobile Alliance ( OMA) is a Standards body which develops Open standards for the Mobile phone industry Ada is a structured, Statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level computer Programming language A multi-paradigm programming language is a Programming language that supports more than one Programming paradigm. Mumps or epidemic Parotitis is a Viral disease of the Human species In Computer science, a type system defines how a Programming language classifies values and expressions into '''types''', how it can A Computer Database is a structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system Health care is the prevention treatment and management of illness and the preservation of mental health through the services offered by the medical, Nursing C# (pronounced C Sharp is a Multi-paradigm The term domain-specific language ( DSL) has become popular in recent years in Software development to indicate a Programming language or Specification Ecma International (Ecma is an international private (membership-based non-profit Standards organization for information and communication systems The Common Information Model ( CIM) is an Open standard that defines how managed elements in an IT environment are represented as a common set of objects Distributed Management Task Force ( DMTF, formerly "Desktop Management Task Force" is a Standards organization that develops and maintains standards for Information technology ( IT) as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA is "the study design development implementation support In its simplest embodiment an object is an allocated region of storage CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable The Yellow Book is the Standard that defines the format of CD-ROMs The Yellow Book created by Sony and Philips, was the first extension of the Ecma International (Ecma is an international private (membership-based non-profit Standards organization for information and communication systems See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. Year 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 Standardization processes The verb license or grant license means to give permission The noun license is the document demonstrating that permission Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical Specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. Bruce Perens, important associations as FSF or FFII 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. Bruce Perens is a Computer programmer and advocate in the Open source community. A patent is a set of Exclusive rights granted by a State to an inventor or his assignee for a fixed period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an 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. In Engineering, a requirement is a singular documented need of what a particular product or service should be or do Royalty free (RF) licensing is generally the only possible license for free/open source software implementations. Royalty Free refers to a type of contract between a two entities (the licensor and licensee that is employed when licensing the rights to use content such as photographs Version 3 of 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.

One result of this controversy was that many governments (including the Danish, French and Spanish governments 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. Oasis-Open allows committees to operate either on a RAND basis or a royalty-free basis, but OASIS does say to grant "open standards" when they are not royalty-free. The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards ( OASIS) is a Global consortium that drives the development convergence and adoption

Patents for software, formulas and algorithms are currently enforceable in the US but not in the EU. Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition The European Patent Convention Article 52 paragraph (2)(c) expressly prohibits algorithms, business methods and software from being covered by patents. The US has only allowed them since 1989 and there has been growing controversy in recent years as to either the benefit or feasibility.

A standards body and its associated processes cannot force a patent holder to give up its right to charge license fees, especially if the company concerned is not a member of the standards body and unconstrained by any rules that were set during the standards development process. In fact, this element discourages some standards bodies from adopting an "open" approach, fearing that they will lose out if their members are more constrained than non-members. Few bodies will carry out (or require their members to carry out) a full patent search. Ultimately, the only sanction a standards body can apply when patent licensing is demanded is to cancel the standard or try to rework around it.

Quotes

See also

References

  1. ^ RFC 2026, IETF
  2. ^ Tim Simcoe: 'Chapter 8: Open Standards and Intellectual Property Rights', To appear in Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm
  3. ^ ITU-T on Open Standards
  4. ^ ITU-T on IPR
  5. ^ ISO TC on Common Patent Policy
  6. ^ European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services, page 17 (Version 1.0, 2004)
  7. ^ "Definitions of Open Standards", 2004
  8. ^ "Loi nº 2004-575" for the Confidence in the Digital Economy", June, 21nd 2004
  9. ^ "Estándares Abiertos"
  10. ^ "Ley 11/2007" of Public Electronic Access of the Citizens to the Public Services, June, 22nd 2007
  11. ^ "Estándares Abiertos"
  12. ^ "Decreto 3390" of Free Software and Open Standards, December, 23rd 2004
  13. ^ "Estándares Abiertos"
  14. ^ Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes!
  15. ^ Ken Krechmer, The Meaning of Open Standards
  16. ^ World Wide Web Consortium Process Document
  17. ^ Defining "Open Standard"
  18. ^ What is an Open Standard?
  19. ^ Defining "Open Standard"
  20. ^ WWW architecture
  21. ^ Portable Document File (PDF) format specification
  22. ^ EU Commissioner Erkki Liikanen on Open Standards
  23. ^ Nokia Foundation Award to Mårten Mickos
  24. ^ Tim Berners-Lee's FAQ

External links

Open systems are Computer systems that provide some combination of Interoperability, portability, and open software standards (It can also mean An Open Specification is a specification created & controlled in an open & fair process by an association or a standardization body intending to achieve interoperability and Conformity assessment is any activity to determine directly or indirectly that a process product or service meets relevant Standards and fulfills relevant requirements In Economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products In Economics and Business, a network effect (also called network externality) is the effect that one user of a good or service has Free software or software libre is Software that can be used studied and modified without restriction and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified Harvard Law School (also known as Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional Graduate schools of Harvard University. The Open ePolicy Group is a global network of technology experts originally launched at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, a policy center at Harvard Law School Bruce Perens is a Computer programmer and advocate in the Open source community. The European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) is the executive branch of the European Union. The International Open Source Network has as its slogan 'software freedom for all' The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting Open-source software. An open standard is a Standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it
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