» Letter from Greg Papadopoulos, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer on Value of Open Standards In the book "Scaffolding the New Web", Martin Libicki writes: "Five years ago, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood hoisted competing visions of the information superhighway. Many were backed by billions of dollars, whether from bonds, venture capitalists, or ticket sales. "Set top boxes" were a particular focus. The Internet, by contrast, had no such backers and modest governance. But it did have standards. And that was enough to prevail." A network functions through collaboration and standards. From the start, Sun Microsystems based our product strategy on hardware and software standards. These include Berkeley UNIXÆ, TCP/IP, Ethernet, and the VME bus. We have long recognized the importance of network concept to social and economic growth, and this notion is part of Sun's corporate DNA. Our commitment to Open Standards continues to attract some of the best standards people and engineers in the world. The dynamic networks of our world are becoming exponentially complex. IT is increasingly integrated into every aspect of our lives: it's the networking utility that allows us to communicate, travel, entertain, inform, trade, monitor health, create and destroy. Billions of wireless micro-devices, environmental sensors and RFID tags will soon join the ranks of "traditional" computers, cell phones and home networking systems; data will flow at an unprecedented scale, with storage, computing and networking resources dynamically allocated across everything. Does this sound crazy and unmanageable? It will be, without Open Standards. So what exactly is an Open Standard? Sun believes that there are minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must exhibit in order to be considered an Open Standard. We call these the Common Criteria for IT Interoperability. The Common Criteria for IT Interoperability address the necessary technical, business and legal components of interoperability that must be supported in a standardization ecosystem. These pro-competitive criteria create an environment in which stakeholder participation is encouraged at every step, the public interest is served, and IP owners are given a secure environment in which their rights are respected and collaboration is encouraged. The results of the Common Criteria for IT Interoperability are true Open Standards. Definition With regards to the business and legal aspects of a standard, the Common Criteria for IT Interoperability outline that: Its development and management process must be collaborative and democratic: Participation must be accessible to all those who wish to participate and can meet air 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. With regards to the technical aspects of a standard, the Common Criteria for IT Interoperability outline that interoperability generally 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. Open Standards provide the following benefits: They enable integration across disparate contexts and systems. They can be implemented and deployed on a variety of environments. They improve the market ecosystem by driving both commoditization and innovation and mitigating adoption risks. They enable and enhance interoperability. They drive prices down by allowing competing implementations. They enable greater substitutability among the products that adhere to them. They provide a level of protection against economic and legal uncertainty, as the process by which they're developed is clear about intellectual property rights. As a technology sytems vendor, Sun knows that only specifications that meet this definition of Open Standards allow the IT industry to innovate from a common base of technology and deliver greater value to consumers. Open Standards match user requirements to vendor capabilities. They make interfaces available to the entire community of developers, not just some select inner circle, which in turn encourages continued innovation built upon that Open Standard interface. When the market grows, the underlying Open Standards expand and adapt with market-based innovation. As time passes, Open Standards evolve to incorporate those innovations, making them a part of a new common base of technology. For technology consumers, it's easier to choose amongst and switch between products that adhere to Open Standards because Open Standards embody technology specifications that allow and encourage multiple implementations, and they drive legal, life-cycle, and implementation homogeneity across all products. They also mitigate the inherent cost in switching between applications that implement similar things in very different ways, thus improving flexibility and availability. A consumer who selects a solution based on Open Standards chooses to not lock into a long-term, proprietary environment. Successful Open Standards define a common technology baseline that encourages the industry to compete on innovations, not the basics. This standardization lifecycle leads to even broader, richer Open Standards. Open Standards provide assurance to both vendors (large and small) and consumers that innovation and value will continue. Sun's commitment to Open Standards is deep and unshakable. Open Standards are central to our long-term, strategic business objectives. We believe this commitment, with the challenge to continually drive the industry forward, will continue to be a key factor in our success.

Evaluate »   Standards Home »   Promotions »   White Papers »   News & Events       Get »   Downloads »   Programs & Promotions       Use »   Documentation »   Communities & Resources »   Newsletters