The Threat to Innovation, Interoperability, and Government Procurement Options From Recently Proposed Definitions of “Open Standards”

Nicos L. Tsilas

4/03/2006
(Original Publish Date: 8/10/2005)

As the information technology (I.T.) marketplace becomes more competitive and heterogeneous in nature, the need for interoperability among diverse systems and components increases dramatically. Whereas 20 years ago, individuals and corporations customarily bought all of their IT equipment and services from one of the major vendors such as Digital, HP, IBM, or NCR, today they purchase and deploy multi-vendor networks of interoperable hardware and software. Today IT vendors accomplish interoperability in several often complementing and overlapping ways, including specifically designing interoperable products, publication of technology and licensing of related intellectual property (IP), and implementation of industry standards, including open standards such as TCP/IP, GSM, HTML, 802.11, and XML.3 Regarding open standards, there is general consensus that their adoption and widespread deployment in products and services is a significant tool for achieving interoperability. However, while most agree on the value of open standards for helping achieve interoperability, there is some debate about how best to define “open standards.” Unfortunately, certain recent attempts to define this important term in Europe and elsewhere are inconsistent with well-established industry norms. These proposed definitions would (1) undermine the successful efforts of leading standards developers, such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE), the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), ECMA, and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), (2) impede technological innovation and interoperability going forward, and (3) limit the universe of standards available to European and other governments in their procurement decisions. This paper proposes a definition of "open standards" that would avoid these problems and continue to facilitate innovation, competition, and interoperability in the IT marketplace, as well as maximum flexibility in government procurement.