Opening Standards

by Denardis, Laura

• ISBN13: 9780262016025
• ISBN10: 0262016028
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-02
• Publisher: Mit Pr

Summary

Openness is not a given on the Internet. Technical standards--the underlying architecture that enables interoperability among hardware and software from different manufacturers--increasingly control individual freedom and the pace of innovation in technology markets. Heated battles rage over the very definition of "openness" and what constitutes an open standard in information and communication technologies. In Opening Standards, experts from industry, academia, and public policy explore just what is at stake in these controversies, considering both economic and political implications of open standards. The book examines the effect of open standards on innovation, on the relationship between interoperability and public policy (and if government has a responsibility to promote open standards), and on intellectual property rights in standardization--an issue at the heart of current global controversies. Finally, Opening Standards recommends a framework for defining openness in twenty-first-century information infrastructures. Contributors discuss such topics as how to reflect the public interest in the private standards-setting process; why open standards have a beneficial effect on competition and Internet freedom; the effects of intellectual property rights on standards openness; and how to define standard, open standard, and software interoperability.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Global Controversies over Open Standards
The Politics of Interoperability	p. 1
Injecting the Public Interest into Internet Standards	p. 3
The Government at the Standards Bazaar	p. 13
Governments, the Public Interest, and Standards Setting	p. 33
Securing the Root	p. 45
Open Document Standards for Government: The South African Experience	p. 63
Standards, Innovation, and Development Economics	p. 73
An Economic Basis for Open Standards	p. 75
Open Innovation and Interoperability	p. 97
Standards, Trade, and Development	p. 119
Standards-Based Intellectual Property Debates	p. 133
Questioning Copyright in Standards	p. 135
Constructing Legitimacy: The W3C's Patent Policy	p. 159
Common and Uncommon Knowledge: Reducing Conflict between Standards and Patents	p. 177
Interoperability and Openness	p. 191
ICT Standards Setting Today: A System under Stress	p. 193
Software Standards, Openness, and Interoperability	p. 209
Open Standards: Definition and Policy	p. 219
List of Contributors	p. 239
Index	p. 247
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