Introduction To Open Standards

7/29/2019 Introduction To Open Standards

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Arun Singh

CIT, UPES

Introduction to Open Standards


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Introduction to Standards

In the early 18th century an English civil and

mechanical engineer, George Stephenson

designed the first public railway. He used a gauge

of 4 feet 8 and half inches.

An American Engineer named Walton W. Evanspursued to find the measurement of Roman

chariots and converted to inches and found that

they were 4 feet 9 inches this is slightly more than

the gauge. This was confirmed by archaeologistlater.

Over the years 4 feet 8 and half inches has

become a gauge standard in railways. From then

on to this day it has become a standard gauge formost railwa s across the world.


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Types of Standards

Broadly standards are classified into 2 types

namely;

De facto standard

De jure Standard

De facto Standard

De facto in Latin it means, in practice,

therefore, this is a standard that has been widely

accepted and has a dominant position in the

market. Mostly these standards are empirical,

meaning they are derived from facts and also

adopted early in the market.


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system keyboard layout has remained the samefrom the typewriters era. The typewriter keys

were placed in specific format to avoid adjacentkeys jamming into each other.

De jure standard

De jure Standards are developed by standardbodies, professional organisation or a consortiumof companies using well defined process. Thestandards developed under this type will strongly

abide by the following attributes-

Openness - Free participation

Process Transparency Fair development

process


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Below are the few examples of ISO (International

standard Organisation) standard;

ISO 8124-1:2000 Safety aspects relating to

mechanical and physical properties

ISO 5775 international standard for the size ofbicycle tires and rims

Many a times De facto standards become de jure

standards, especially which have been in use forlonger period of time. For example railway

gauges.


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Open Standard

Open means, non-secretive. Which means its

available for public knowledge.

A standard is like a blueprint. It provides guidelines

to anyone who wants to follow the specification to

build a product.

Standards are developed to make things work as

the same way even though they are made by

different manufactures.

Open Standards are publicly available

documents that contain implementable

specifications (Wikipedia).


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For example, when we buy a telephone we do notworry about telephone plug and the jack because

we are sure it works.All the telephones manufactured by differenttelephone companies will have the same plug as astandard.

Telephone industries have a blueprint for jack andplug which are mandatory and are followed by allthe telephone manufacturers.

No single vendor can change this standard.

The traffic signaling system is a example of Openstandard, the rules of the road, and bulbetc.Virtue of openness brings in interoperability and

interchange-ability.


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Attributes of Open Standard

Accessibility-Open Standard should be available

for everyone.

No Royalty Fee - No royalty charges to use the

open standard specification to build a product.

Unbiased - Not biased to a particular implementer

open standard is one that exercises openness indevelopment, openness in implementation, and

openness in use.


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Openness in Development: Anyone can

participate in developing the Open standard and

without regard to any external influences likegovernment, credentials etc.

There is no joining fee for the membership.

The procedure followed during the development

will be absolutely transparent. During the course of

development the entire document should be made

available to public.

Openness in Implementation: Once the openstandard is developed with all the specification it

should be made available to all, including vendor

and general public.

There is no fee for obtaining this specification.S ecification share should be same across all the


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Openness in Use: To take the full advantage ofopenness, the implementation should be

interoperable between multiple vendors.

This not only benefits users but also encourage

innovation. Due to the openness and availabilityacross multiple vendors users will have better

service.


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Closed Standard

Closed standards generally are not developed byconsortiums but mostly by single company.

The specifications for these standards are not open

for public viewing. As this is limited to single

company, it completely controls the developmentand maintenance of the standard.

This leads to vendor lock-in. Sometimes when

customers want to adopt newer technologies they

are limited by the availability of that technology withthe vendor, even if its available it might cost him

dearer.


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Closed in Development: All the developmentprocess and specification is not available for

others to review and change.As everything is veiled to the outside world, otherswill never know if there are any deviation withprocedure and process followed.

A completely closed development process alsohas no transparency, Meeting proceedings andintra-company electronic discussions are notpublished and do not become part of a publicrecord.

Closed in Implementation: The closeddeveloped product is not available for others toimplement. Ifits a intellectual property then all therights are reserved.

Due to closed specification other vendors cannot


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Closed in Use: Customers are locked into a

single vendor and many a times they end up

buying other peripheral products from the same

vendor.


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Summary

To summarize this chapter, we saw types of standards

and their attributes. We also looked into open and

closed standards and their characteristics.

The below figure depicts the relationships between the

various standards. It should be noted that De facto

standard can be both Open and closed. However a De

Jure standard can only be Open.


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Examples:

As described in the beginning of this chapter, the railroad gauge and keyboard layout are classic examplesof an Open

De facto standard.

Microsoft word is one of the best known Closed Defacto standard for word processors.

Power supplied to homes are regulated by localGovernment and specifications are available for theimplementers which is an Open De jure Standard.

A De jure standard is developed by groups and theirspecifications are available for vendors to implement.This cannot be a closed standard.

Documents

Introduction To Open Standards