Open standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. By allowing anyone to use the standard, they increase compatibility between various hardware and software components since anyone with the technical know-how and the necessary equipment to implement solutions can build something that works together with those of other vendors.

Many standards are proprietary rather than being open, and must be licensed from the organization that owns the standard.

Contents

1 Examples of open standards 2 Patents 3 Quotes 4 Related topics 5 External links

Examples of open standards

Hardware:

• ISA
• PCI
• AGP

Software:

• HTML
• SQL
• IP
• TCP
• PDF

Patents

In 2002 and 2003 there was some controversy about using Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (RAND) licensing for the use of patented technology in web standards. 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 software or open source implementations which can be redistributed by anyone. Royalty free (RF) licensing is preferred by Open Source adepts. The GNU GPL 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.

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) [1] (http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1374%7C0%7CRAPID&lg=EN)

Related topics

• International standard
• Standard
• Standardisation
• Standards Organizations

External links

• Bruce Perens: Open Standards: Principles and Practice (http://perens.com/OpenStandards/)
• Ken Krechner: The Principles of Open Standards (http://www.csrstds.com/openstds.html)
• European Commission: Valoris report on Open Document Formats (http://europa.eu.int/ida/en/document/3439)

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