An open standard is a technical specification which is publicly available. The purpose of the open standards is that various independent hardware and software components seamlessly work together.
This means that you can build and program something that works with equipment that is manufactured by another company.
It ensures free competition, and also make it easier for users to apply the standards in new contexts and in new ways.
Open standards can make it easier to use an OS program, because a closed standard will often mean that you get locked into a specific system. A closed standard could for instance be a document, created i MS Word, which only can be opened in this program.
OpenDocument (ODT), which is OS will not have this limitation because it is based on open standards. All software producers can use the standards, and ODT can open in many different applications. OS may contribute to the transparant development of standards, so that OS supports the development of open standards.
On the other hand, the OS software also helps to promote the use of open standards, since programs often helps to ensure that standard development takes place in transparentcy. OS can also support closed standards, if paid for the license or patent. Likewise, software that is owned by a company, is also based on open standards.
No one owns the open standards, but they are frequently operated by a nonprofit organization such as the Standards Organization ISO.
The open standard ODF documents are approved by a number of standard organizing organizations. It is Microsoft's bid on an open standard, OOXML, however not. The accreditation process, which generated an intense debate on the necessity of two open standards, is taking place right now.
A united parliament adopted on 2 June 2006 a resolution on the use of open standards for software in the public. The goal is to create greater transparency, competition and coherence in the public sector and ensure the individual citizen's freedom of choice.
The adoption means that the government must ensure that the information used in government is based on open standards. All digital information and data should be available in formats based on open standards.
Danmarks Radio (Danish public service TV- and radio station) has also pledged to use open standards for its online business. One of the commitments is that DR must offer public service content in all relevant technological platforms.
This includes the DR experiment with open standards in video formats, which gives a greater availability of Linux and Mac users.
Hardware:
* ISA (a specification by IBM, which was later standardized by IEEE)
* PCI (a specification by Intel)
* AGP (a specification by Intel)
Software:
* HTML / XHTML (W3C specification)
* PDF (a specification by Adobe Systems Incorporated)
* E-mail
* OpenDocument for office docs (approved by both ISO and OASIS)
* FTP
* SQL (app. by ASI and ISO with unofficial variants and additions)
* ODF
