In a recent article, Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer for the Internet Society (ISOC) penned the article “Permissionless Innovation: Openness – Not Anarchy.” In the article, Dagel describes permissionless innovation as follows:
“…’permission-free innovation’ is used to describe how the Internet differs from closed telecommunications networks, where only the local operators could build, deploy, and offer new services to their customer base, and that within a stringent regulatory (permission-requiring) regime.”
Says Daigle, “The Web is the poster child for the ‘permission-free innovation’ that the Internet has enabled.” She went on to state, “Sir Tim Berners-Lee did not have to ask a central authority whether or not he could write a client-server hypertext system. He wrote it; others who found the possibilities interesting downloaded clients and servers and started using it.”
Daigle argues that permissionless innovation is not a green light for anarchy. Instead, it’s about removing a layer of regulation, allowing for cooperation and open access to technologies and services already in place, which will operate within the bounds of existing norms – technical standards, operational practices, and local laws.
The OpenStand Principles of Cooperation, Adherence to Principles, Collective Empowerment, Availability and Voluntary Adoption support the concept and objectives of permissionless innovation, and seek to to preserve the open, global innovation that have brought us technologies like the Internet. You can read more of Daigle’s post here.