The best test for "openness" around a technical standard is its
ability to promote competing, interoperable implementations. In his
paper "An Economic Analysis
of Open Standards,"
Professor Rishab Ghosh of
the University of Maastricht argued that "open standards should be
defined in terms of a desired economic effect: supporting full
competition in the marketplace for suppliers of a technology and
related products and services." If only one company -- or only that
company's close partners -- can fully implement a standard, then the
standard isn't really open, no matter how "reasonable" its licensing
terms might be or how many people collaborated in its creation.
However, there is still a need to erase ambiguity around exactly
what constitutes an open standard and what policies will best
support their creation and adoption. For this reason, Sun composed
the following checklist for Open Standards. This list addresses the
necessary technical, business and legal components of
interoperability, with a focus on the final product: the standard
itself. These pro-competitive criteria create an environment in
which the public interest is served, multiple, competing
implementations create a flourishing and competitive market, and IP
owners are given a secure environment in which their rights are
respected and collaboration is encouraged. The results are true Open
Standards.
Two areas are equally important in determining whether a technical
specification is truly an open standard: how it's created and
managed and how it can be used.
Creation and Management of an Open Standard
Its development and management process must be collaborative
and democratic:
Participation must be accessible to all those who wish
to participate and can meet fair and reasonable criteria
imposed by the organization under which it is developed
and managed.
The processes must be documented and, through a known
method, can be changed through input from all participants.
The process must be based on formal and binding
commitments for the disclosure and licensing of
intellectual property rights.
Development and management should strive for consensus,
and an appeals process must be clearly outlined.
The standard specification must be open to extensive
public review at least once in its life-cycle, with
comments duly discussed and acted upon, if required.
Use and Licensing of an Open Standard
The standard must describe an interface, not an
implementation, and the industry must be capable of creating
multiple, competing implementations to the interface described
in the standard without undue or restrictive constraints.
Interfaces include APIs, protocols, schemas, data formats and
their encoding.
The standard must not contain any proprietary "hooks" that
create a technical or economic barriers
Faithful implementations of the standard must interoperate.
Interoperability
means the ability of a computer program to communicate and
exchange information with other computer programs and mutually
to use the information which has been exchanged. This includes
the ability to use, convert, or exchange file formats,
protocols, schemas, interface information or conventions, so
as to permit the computer program to work with other computer
programs and users in all the ways in which they are intended
to function.
It must be permissible for anyone to copy, distribute and read
the standard for a nominal fee, or even no fee. If there is a
fee, it must be low enough to not preclude widespread use.
It must be possible for anyone to obtain free (no royalties or
fees; also known as "royalty free"), worldwide, non-exclusive
and perpetual licenses to all essential patent claims to make,
use and sell products based on the standard. The only
exceptions are terminations per the reciprocity and defensive
suspension terms outlined below. Essential patent claims
include pending, unpublished patents, published patents, and
patent applications. The license is only for the exact scope
of the standard in question.
May be conditioned only on reciprocal licenses to any of
licensees' patent claims essential to practice that
standard (also known as a reciprocity clause)
May be terminated as to any licensee who sues the
licensor or any other licensee for infringement of
patent claims essential to practice that standard (also
known as a "defensive suspension" clause
The same licensing terms are available to every
potential licensor
The licensing terms of an open standards must not preclude
implementations of that standard under open source licensing
terms or restricted licensing terms.
