This chapter lets you understand why open technical standards are necessary. We then provide a case study of an organization who is working toward getting various entities and international officials together to coordinate the growing need for common standards. We bring up the topic of technology standards organizations that prepare and maintain technical standards for the greater society. Each technical standard has a set of stages through their life that includes development, draft, available, and sunset. We provide an example technology classification model that can be used as a reference for representing technical standards within an organization. After this we provide an understanding of the DoD Technical Reference Model and a representative system technical standards profile. The standards profile is comprehensive in nature, and provides a common set of technical standards that are in use at any organization.
TopChapter Content
As you explore through Chapter 10, it covers the following topics:
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The Need for Open Standards
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CASE STUDY: The Berkman Center
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Technology Standards Organizations
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Key Concepts for Technology Standards
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Defining a Technical Reference Model
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DoD Technical Standards Classification
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Representative System Technical Standards Profile
TopCase Study: The Berkman Center
BERKMAN CENTER FOR INTERNET & SOCIETY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
A project begun by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School (can be researched at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/) put together officials from a number of countries around the world. These included officials from United States, China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and others. The group discussed technology standards and economic development, and focused on the use of technology standards to help foster growth in developing countries.
The group defined an open standard as technology that is not owned by a single company and is openly published. However, there is still a huge debate among public policy makers in the government, and non-governmental and non-profit organizations as to how far openness can go.