What are Open Standards?
Open Standards are internationally accepted protocols (technical specifications) that guarantee that data can be exchanged between ICT systems. An open standard must comply with the following requirements:
- the standards are defined using an open decision-making process;
- the standards are published;
- the costs of using the standard are low and do not form a barrier preventing access to the standard;
- the intellectual property rights to the standard belong to a non-profit organization that has a policy that does not restrict membership in any way;
- there are no conditions restricting re-use of the standard.
In the absence of such a protocol, nobody knows how others supply information or what the information supplied or requested actually involves. The result would be a motley collection of programs that are unable to process each other’s data.
Open standards are therefore crucial for good information management and proper usage of information.