For purposes of this whitepaper, open standards will focus on common formats and protocols.
Support for open standards can be implemented by everyone (in OSS and proprietary solutions alike) since the specifications are available at little or no cost and its development is open and transparent. OSS tends to use and help define open standards and publicly available specifications. OSS products are, by their nature, publicly available specifications, and the availability of their source code promotes open, democratic debate around their specifications, making them both more robust and interoperable. The use of open standards is necessary to ensure interoperability between products or systems.
From a design standpoint, interoperability and OSS are clearly separate, as are OSS and open standards. From a cultural and historical standpoint, however, there are strong ties between these concepts. This can be explained by the "community of values" - due to their open nature, open-source software economic models are based less on strategies to lock in the user and more on interoperability to benefit the user.
The exact formulation of these elements can vary depending on who has jurisdiction, but there is a high level of convergence, as illustrated below by the comparison of the RGI (France's ''Référentiel Général d'Interopérabilité'', or General Guidelines for Interoperability), the CCIGQ (''Cadre Commun d'Interopérabilité du Gouvernement du Québec'', or the Quebec government's common interoperability framework) and the EIF (European Interoperability Framework). The criteria set out in the British Cabinet Office's Open Standards Principles (OSP)are identical to the CCIGQ criteria.
Inspired by the four policy documents, the GC will adhere to the following criteria:
- A process for the standard's development that is open and transparent to all interested parties and cannot be controlled by any single person or entity with any vested interests
- Platform independent, vendor neutral and usable for multiple implementations
- Specifications and supporting material are freely available with limited restrictions
- must be supported by the market and demonstrate independence or approved through due process by rough consensus among participants
- TBS Open Data Principles (Use of Commonly Owned Standards)