Leslie Daigle, Chief Internet Technology Officer of the Internet Society wrote in a blog post on CircleID asserting that nothing on the Internet or the Web happens without the infrastructure of standards and making a case for the continued need for open standards development.
According to Daigle, “Allowing the community of Internet technology developers and users to create and experiment, build without permission, and feed their real-world experience back into the standards process, supports the uniquely innovative character that is the hallmark of the Internet.” She then continued, “The top-down imposition of mandatory standards runs contrary to this process, preventing standards from developing in response to fast-paced technological evolution and market needs.”
The Internet is designed to bring people together and to increase communication on multiple levels. On a human level, the Internet brings people together socially based on common interests and by allowing independent networks to communicate with each other. On a technical level, the established protocols of the Internet help enable systems to communicate and execute tasks seamlessly. Many of these protocols would not be possible without the collaboration of global standards development organizations working collaboratively, in an open manner.
Daigle argues, “Standards developed with global input from a diversity of sources through open processes have the greatest chance of producing outcomes that are technically exceptional, leverage cutting edge engineering expertise, and support interoperability and global competitiveness in technology markets.”
That’s why OpenStand was founded. In truth, the paradigm Daigle espouses has been in play for decades — long before the IEEE, IAB, IETF, Internet Society and W3C came together to jointly affirm the OpenStand Principles. So, in effect, the OpenStand principles lie at the core of the success of the Internet and Internet-related technologies. As the Internet continues to grow – in an era of complex convergence – it is critical that technical standards continue to be developed based on open processes and consensus-based decision making,with transparency and balance.
Says Daigle, “The OpenStand approach has given us the building blocks to create previously unimaginable services and opportunities to interconnect the world’s population. By tapping into the world’s greatest engineering talent, and more directly translating those talents into technical solutions, it creates the platform that generates innovation for everyone.”