{"id":220,"date":"2007-07-12T14:39:56","date_gmt":"2007-07-12T21:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2007\/07\/12\/definition-of-open-standards\/"},"modified":"2007-07-13T08:10:12","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T15:10:12","slug":"definition-of-open-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/07\/definition-of-open-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"Definition of Open Standards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Jel\u00adliffe, who\u2019s been in the middle of lots of stand\u00adards efforts, writes on the sub\u00adject at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oreillynet.com\/xml\/blog\/2007\/07\/is_our_idea_of_open_standards.html\">Is our idea of \u201cOpen Stand\u00adards\u201d good enough? Veri\u00adfi\u00adable vendor-neut\u00adral\u00adity<\/a>. Worth read\u00ading, although he does make the assump\u00adtion that the term \u201copen stand\u00adards\u201d means \u201ccre\u00adated by some stand\u00adards organ\u00adiz\u00ada\u00adtion\u201d. Although that\u2019s a tempt\u00ading defin\u00adi\u00adtion, and the one used by a lot of people (and the one I hap\u00adpen to prefer), it\u2019s not the only defin\u00adi\u00adtion that I\u2019ve seen. I\u2019ve seen three main cat\u00adegor\u00adies of defin\u00adi\u00adtions of the term \u201copen stand\u00adard\u201d when applied to some specification:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Any\u00adone can read the spe\u00adcific\u00ada\u00adtion (usu\u00adally without pay\u00ading); often applied to pro\u00adpri\u00adet\u00adary spe\u00adcific\u00ada\u00adtions which are treated as de facto standards.<\/li>\n<li>Cre\u00adated in a stand\u00adards organ\u00adiz\u00ada\u00adtion that allows any\u00adone to take part who has rel\u00adev\u00adant expert\u00adise or can pay the appro\u00adpri\u00adate&nbsp;dues.<\/li>\n<li>Able to be used in any open source pro\u00adjects (i.e., there are restric\u00adtions on the types of licenses that can be&nbsp;used).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Recog\u00adnising that lots of people use the term \u201copen stand\u00adard\u201d to mean dif\u00adfer\u00adent things, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.projectliberty.org\/\">Liberty Alli\u00adance<\/a> recently pub\u00adlished what that term means in the con\u00adtext of Liberty Alli\u00adance spe\u00adcific\u00ada\u00adtions and guidelines. It\u2019s called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.projectliberty.org\/liberty\/files\/whitepapers\/liberty_alliance_commitment_to_open_standards\">Liberty Alli\u00adance Com\u00admit\u00adment to Open Stand\u00adards<\/a> and it\u2019s a very brief doc\u00adu\u00adment out\u00adlining a set of con\u00addi\u00adtions for those spe\u00adcific\u00ada\u00adtions and guidelines (yes, the doc\u00adu\u00adment talks about tech\u00adnic\u00adal spe\u00adcific\u00ada\u00adtions but really it applies to oth\u00ader types of doc\u00adu\u00adments as well). The top item in the list of con\u00addi\u00adtions to be an open stand\u00adard, to answer Rick\u00ad\u2019s main point that <q>rather than talk\u00ading \u00e2\u20ac\u0153open stand\u00adard\u00ads\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we need to be talk\u00ading as much of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153verifiable vendor-neut\u00adral\u00adity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/q>, is <q>can\u00adnot be con\u00adtrolled by any single per\u00adson or entity with any ves\u00adted interests<\/q>.<\/p>\n<p>I dis\u00adagree with Rick when he says that only <span class=\"caps\">ISO<\/span> is truly vendor-neut\u00adral since only nation\u00adal bod\u00adies vote, as those nation\u00adal bod\u00adies could in the\u00adory be swayed by vendors. What you really want is to bal\u00adance the needs of all parties (vendors, users, gov\u00adern\u00adments), but that\u2019s dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to attain in any organ\u00adiz\u00ada\u00adtion. You need not only an organ\u00adiz\u00ada\u00adtion that is set up to allow for input from all those stake\u00adhold\u00aders (to pro\u00adduce stand\u00adards that are <q>evolved and man\u00adaged in a trans\u00adpar\u00adent pro\u00adcess open to all inter\u00adested parties<\/q> and <q>approved through due pro\u00adcess by rough con\u00adsensus among par\u00adti\u00adcipants<\/q>) but you also need to have enough par\u00adti\u00adcipants who are inter\u00adested in the end res\u00adult, and have the appro\u00adpri\u00adate expert\u00adise. And you need a com\u00adpet\u00adent chair for each com\u00admit\u00adtee, of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Jel\u00adliffe, who\u2019s been in the middle of lots of stand\u00adards efforts, writes on the sub\u00adject at Is our idea of \u201cOpen Stand\u00adards\u201d good enough? Veri\u00adfi\u00adable vendor-neut\u00adral\u00adity. Worth read\u00ading, although he does make the assump\u00adtion that the term \u201copen stand\u00adards\u201d means \u201ccre\u00adated by some stand\u00adards organ\u00adiz\u00ada\u00adtion\u201d. Although that\u2019s a tempt\u00ading defin\u00adi\u00adtion, and the one used \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/07\/definition-of-open-standards\/\" class=\"more-link\">Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cDefin\u00adi\u00adtion of Open Standards\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-standards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}