Open Standards, Open Formats, and Open Source

Davide Cerri, CEFRIEL - Politecnico di Milano, and Alfonso Fuggetta, CEFRIEL - Politecnico di Milano

2/26/2008
(Original Publish Date: 1/15/2007)

The paper proposes some comments and reflections on the notion of “openness” and on how it relates to three important topics: open standards, open formats, and open source. Often, these terms are considered equivalent and/or mutually implicated: “open source is the only way to enforce and exploit open standards”. This position is misleading, as it increases the confusion about this complex and extremely critical topic. The paper clarifies the basic terms and concepts. This is instrumental to suggest a number of actions and practices aiming at promoting and defending openness in modern ICT products and services. Keywords: open source, open standard, open format, software development process, software procurement, interoperability.