The Role of Technical Standards in Today’s Society and in the Future

Martin C. Libicki, Senior Policy Analyst RAND

4/11/2008
(Original Publish Date: 9/13/2000)

Information technology is changing fast. Not surprisingly, standards -- the methods used to bring some order to the process -- have changed apace. Standards can be, yes, boring and even annoying. They are often accused of impeding innovation and originality. But the world of information technology would never have left the blackboards without them. Computing and communications is no more possible without common conventions than is conversation without a common language. But once there is agreement on the modalities of interchange, there are no limits to the kind of creativity that can be expressed using such common terms.