OnePeople

Open standards are motherhood and apple pie – they ensure a level playing field in which many implementations can compete against each other, keep the barrier to participation low for newcomers, will outlive any given company, and ensure that systems can communicate with each other with a minimum of fuss. In other words, open standards create efficient and durable markets.

Open standards also keep costs low for buyers, who have many options and a minimum of friction when they want to switch from one implementation to another. Because the standard is open, there is no danger of being locked into a single vendor since anyone can create a new implementation against the standard. Since open standards will always exist, there’s no danger of the standard disappearing, becoming unsupported, or being later made proprietary. An open standard will encourage these efficient, durable markets for as long as the standard is useful.