Open Standards

by Randolph Metcalfe on 1 June 2005 , last updated 9 May 2013

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Introduction

Disparate computer systems and networks cannot be made to talk to one another, or interoperate, if they do not speak the same language. Standards are like the shared rules of a language. Open standards bring together all interested parties to contribute to their creation and maintenance. They are published through a standards body such as IEEE, ISO, W3C or OASIS. These resources explore issues around standards, standards bodies, and the implementation of standards in software.

Briefing Notes

Open Standards and Open Source

External Resources

CETIS open standards and interoperability service [http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk/]
Wikipedia page for “Open standards” surveying a number of differing definitions [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standards]
Patents and Open Standards overview by Cover Pages [http://xml.coverpages.org/patents.html]
Open Grid Forum - developing standards for grid software [http://www.ogf.org/]
Open Web Foundation - fledgling community for standards relating to the web [http://openwebfoundation.org/]

Standards organisations

IEEE [http://standards.ieee.org/sa/index.html]
ISO [http://www.iso.org/]
W3C [http://www.w3.org/]
OASIS [http://www.oasis-open.org/]
IETF [http://www.ietf.org/]