What is the current status of the OpenStand website?

The OpenStand principles as an effective and successful standardization model that conveys the power and impact of bottom-up collaboration in harnessing global creativity and expertise to standards in any technology space continue to be relevant, especially in the era of rapid technology development and use. The principles will continue to be available through this website, as well as in articles and resources highlighting examples of open standards developed through the OpenStand paradigm. The recruitment of supporters of the OpenStand principles via the OpenStand website and the news service are archived as of 31 December 2017.

What is OpenStand, and how do standards organizations join?

OpenStand is not a standalone entity to be joined. Rather, all standards organizations, governments, corporations and technology innovators globally are invited to endorse the OpenStand principles, which are available at the OpenStand website.

The OpenStand principles seek to capture the effective and efficient standardization processes that have made the Internet and Web the premiere platforms for innovation and borderless commerce and encapsulate them in a model that is extendible to other technology spaces and industries. The OpenStand principles, which create a modern paradigm for global, open standards, demand:

  • cooperation among standards organizations;
  • adherence to due process, broad consensus, transparency, balance and openness in standards development;
  • commitment to technical merit, interoperability, competition, innovation and benefit to humanity;
  • availability of standards to all, and
  • voluntary adoption.

What is the goal of the OpenStand movement, and why did IEEE, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Society and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) come together to develop them?

Technology innovation is exploding at breakneck speed, and the world needs technically excellent standards to be developed more quickly. Documenting, sharing and garnering support for these proven OpenStand principles is intended to address the fact that, in some industries, products are being developed before standards are actually finished.

The modern paradigm defined by the OpenStand principles is proven in its ability to efficiently yield the kind of globally scoped standards that have the most significant impact in terms of creating global markets, fostering job creation and economic opportunity and yielding better products at more competitive prices. Such standards are essential to bringing about the world that humanity desires and figure to playing even greater roles in industry to industry and market to market around the world in the years ahead. The OpenStand principles capture the requirements for conveying the power of bottom-up collaboration in harnessing global creativity and expertise to the standards of any technology space that will underpin the modern economy moving forward.

Do the OpenStand principles change the way that the endorsing standard organizations operate?

No. In fact, the OpenStand principles essentially codify existing processes that have been followed for years with regard to the Internet and some other technology areas. Some industries know no other method than the modern paradigm for global, open standards that is defined by the OpenStand principles; in other technology areas, the OpenStand paradigm is entirely new.

What is different about the OpenStand model?

Because industry today exists in an effectively borderless world of commerce, a borderless standards paradigm is needed, too. The OpenStand principles—based on the effective and efficient standardization processes that have made the Internet and Web the premiere platforms for innovation and borderless commerce—foster an efficient, technical-merit-driven and open modern paradigm of global standardization for borderless commerce.

A key characteristic of the complementary model is coordination across the global standards environment. Standards organizations coordinate so that global industry does not have to exert extraordinary effort and shoulder terrific overhead of process to meet country-by-country standards requirements. The result is an efficient global standards environment that is straightforward for industry to navigate and that more quickly and cost-effectively avails consumers to innovations.

In the modern paradigm for global, open standards that the OpenStand principles define, it is the economics of global markets—fueled by technological innovation—that drive global deployment of standards.

What is happening in the world that is driving change in standards?

Global standards have been driving innovation, contributing to the growth of markets and protecting the health and public safety of workers and the general public for centuries. Global standards are fundamental tools of engineering, and they are fundamental to social wellbeing. Furthermore, global standards’ value and necessity are coming into keener focus in this age of globalization. Today, more than ever, the world needs global standards to enable the creation of products and services that will be implemented and used by customers globally. Such global standards have the most significant impact for industry, in terms of creating global markets. Consumers benefit from improved interoperability, greater simplicity and more competitive prices. Global standards are essential to bringing about the world that humankind desires.

Who benefits in the OpenStand paradigm for standards?

The modern paradigm defined by the OpenStand principles is proven in its ability to efficiently yield the kind of globally scoped standards that have the most significant impact in terms of creating global markets, fostering job creation and economic opportunity and yielding better products at more competitive prices.

For example, the OpenStand principles make the global standards landscape less complex and costly. The principles demand respectful cooperation among standards organizations, whereby each respects the autonomy, integrity, processes and intellectual property rules of the others. This is valuable is that it eliminates duplicated effort (and associated overhead of process that is ultimately shouldered by industry). There’s no value—for companies, for customers or for governments—in one standards organization performing additional processing on a high-quality standard from another. In fact, it can prove harmful to the original standard’s technical merit.

In the modern paradigm for global, open standards that is defined by the OpenStand principles, the voice of the international marketplace rings loud and clear. And this is important because, when the market itself is empowered to choose the appropriate solutions and decide which standards are relevant, those markets become self-sustaining and drive innovation in technology, products and services. Consumers benefit from better products, improved interoperability, greater simplicity and more competitive prices. Industry realizes a globally scaled marketplace for its products and services. Humanity benefits.

Where did the OpenStand principles come from?

The OpenStand principles are based on the effective and efficient standardization processes that have made the Internet and Web the premiere platforms for innovation and borderless commerce.

IEEE standards for the Internet’s physical connectivity, IETF standards for end-to-end global Internet interoperability and the W3C standards for the World Wide Web form the foundation for the Internet in market to market around the globe. The success of the Internet and World Wide Web in fueling an economic and social transformation touching billions of lives could not have occurred without the efficient standardization of so many underlying technologies. These global standards were developed with a focus toward technical excellence and deployed through collaboration of many participants from all around the world. The standards organizations, through their constituents, were (and continue to be) driven by the momentum of the market to innovate and provide products for global consumers. The results have literally changed the world.

In what other industries are the OpenStand principles relevant?

The OpenStand principles strive to encapsulate the Internet’s successful standardization model and make it extendable across the contemporary, global economy’s gamut of technology spaces and markets. The OpenStand principles form the foundation of a technology-agnostic paradigm for global standards, conveying the power of bottom-up collaboration in harnessing international creativity and expertise to the standards of any technology space that will underpin the modern economy moving forward.

Some industries know no other method than the modern paradigm for global, open standards that is defined by the OpenStand principles. The principles are already proven in their ability to foster competition and cooperation, support innovation and interoperability and drive market success across varied technology spaces and industries beyond the Internet.

For example, globally adopted design-automation standards, which have paved the way for a giant leap forward in industry’s ability to define complex electronic solutions, provide another example of standards developed in the spirit of the OpenStand principles. SystemVerilog, the Unified Power Format (UPF) and the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM)—among others that are critical to successful chip design flows and methodologies—are prime examples of the execution of the modern paradigm for global, open standards, which the OpenStand principles define.

Another technology space that figures to demand such standards over the next decades is the global smart-grid effort, which seeks to augment regional facilities for electricity generation, distribution, delivery and consumption with a two-way, end-to-end network for communications and control.

What other standards organizations might endorse the OpenStand principles?

All standards organizations, governments, corporations and technology innovators globally are invited to endorse the principles, which are available at the Openstand website.

Why are the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) involved?

The IAB is concerned with the long-term technical direction and architecture of the Internet, and the IETF is the place where standards are developed on a day-to-day basis. Both organizations embody the OpenStand principles.