Every day, online and offline, open standards benefit humanity.  In our modern world, posting blog content, searching the web and sending/receiving mail has become second nature – and many of the underpinning technologies that support these tasks leverage open standards.

To illustrate how this works in her life, Anna, the Community Manager at phpList, created the infographic below in celebration of 2014 Document Freedom Day.  Says Anna,  “Basically every task I do as phpList Community Manager uses Open Standards of some kind. Writing this blog, for example, used http, ip, www and html to name just a few. Also, while I write I am using IRC and xmpp to talk with my phpList friends and colleagues. A sizable portion of my day is spent replying to emails, which uses a whole host of Open Protocols, ranging from openPGP to imap and smtp.”

php-document-freedom-day-infographic-open-standards-phplist

She continues, “Open Standards really are vital to our ability to work together on-line, without them we could not communicate or collaborate…so my life would be a colossal bore!”

Anna’s infographic provides a simple illustration of how open standards have improved the way she lives, works and communicates.  In truth, every day — online and offline — open standards improve life for people around the world and play an essential role as building blocks for technology innovation and economic growth.

While we don’t know if Anna is an OpenStand supporter, we like the insights she provides here and thought we’d share. You can view her full post, here.

OpenStand celebrates the contributions of the open developments community and advocates for a set of proven OpenStand Principles to drive standards and technology development.  We hope you’ll Stand With Us as an advocate for an open future.