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Open Standards come publicly available specifications for achieving a specific project. By permitting anyone to obtain & implement a standard, it might increase compatibility between various hardware and software components, since anyone with a necessary technical indicator know-how and resources can build products that act together sustaining people of the more marketer that base their designs on the standard (although patent holders could inflict "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalty fees and more licensing terms in implementers of the standard).

Numbers of technical indicator specifications that come periodically considered standards come proprietary like than existence open, & come sole available under restrictive contract terms (in case it may be found in a least) from either a organization that owns the right of first publication for the specification.

Existence an open standard likewise doesn't necessarily indicate that there is no licenses to patent rights come required to utilise a standard or even that such licenses come available gratis. For instance, a standards published per major internationally-recognized standards bodies like a ITU, ISO, and IEC are ordinarily considered open, however will call for patent licensing fees for implementation.

Open standards which may be implemented by anyone, forgoing royalties or even more restrictions, come for instance known as open formats.

There exists little really universal agreement astir a usage of either of the terms "open" or even "standard". Occasionally humans limit their utilise of the term "open" to royalty-yours free! technologies, spell others don't; & a select few population limit their have of the term "standard" to technologies approved by formalised committees that come open to participation by everthing concerned parties & operate the consensus basis, spell others don't.

Examples of open standards
Devices: ISA (a specification by IBM for plug-card boards to IBM-architecture PCs, late standardized per IEEE) PCI (a specification by Intel Corporation for plug-circuit board boards to IBM-architecture PCs) AGP (a specification by Intel Corporation for plug-circuit board boards to IBM-architecture PCs)

Software system: HTML/XHTML (specifications of the W3C for structured hyperlinked document formatting) SQL (a specification approved by ANSI & ISO, sustaining multiple generations of project & extra less official variants) IP (the specificatiin of the IETF for transmitting packets of information on a network - specifically, IETF RFC 791) TCP (a specificatiin of the IETF for implementing streams, lakes, and wells throughout of information on top of IP - specifically, IETF RFC 793) PDF (a specification by Adobe Systems Incorporated for formatted documents, late approved by ISO when ISO 15930-1:2001) OpenDocument (a specification by OASIS for office documents)

Patents
Inside 2002 and 2003 there was some contestation all about applying reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) licensing for the use of patented technology inside web standards. Bruce Perens and others have argued that a apply of patents restricts who potty implement the standard to people a cappella or even uncoerced to invite the apply of the patented technology. A requirement to pay some little total by the user, is typically an insuperable condition for free software or open source implementations which can be redistributed by anyone. Royalty free (RF) licensing is preferred by Open Source ace. A GNU GPL license includes a subdivisiin that enjoins anyone world health organization distributes a program freed under the GPL from either enforcing patents on subsequent users of the software system or even 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) [http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1374%7C0%7CRAPID&lg=EN]

OpenStandards.net
A not-for-profit organization connecting people to open standards and the bodies that build and foster their growth.

Why There Are Not GIF Files on GNU Pages
Advocates against the use of image formats that are protected by patents. Presents a brief history of the GIF format as well as its open alternatives.

We Can Put an End to Word Attachments
Richard Stallman's arguments against the use of proprietary formats in document exchange.

MS-Word Is Not a Document Exchange Format
Explains the appropriate use of document formats and argues against the use of Word attachments.

Open Standards: Principles and Practice
Illustrates the principles behind format standardization and the practice of promoting formats interoperability.

Sincere Choice
Intercommunication and file formats should follow standards that are sincerely open for all to implement, without royalty fees or discrimination.

No Proprietary Binary Data Formats
Why not use proprietary formats and what are the main open alternatives.

Avoid E-Mail Attachments, Especially Microsoft Word
Short document with instructions to MS-Word users on alternatives they can use for document exchange.

We Can Put an End to Word Attachments - A Discussion
Forum on Richard Stallman's document against file exchange in proprietary format.

Open Standards Repository
Archive of standards relevant to the Open Source community, including licenses, public standards, protocols, RFCs.


Computers: Open Source: Advocacy
Science: Reference: Standards
Society: Issues: Intellectual Property: Patents




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