Open Standards

The Centre for Internet and Society promotes Open Standards, i.e., standards that are technically and legally free to study, free to use, developed and managed in an open manner, with a complete implementation available to all. Open standards help all -- government and citizens, industry and consumers -- by allowing greater interoperability and choice (since they are necessary for free and open source software), greater competition, reduction in costs, and greater long-term reliability. As part of our work on Open Standards, we have been providing the comments to the Indian government's Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, and have been working as a member of the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards at the UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum.

Open Standards: Ensuring Accessibility and Inclusiveness (IGF, from Sep 16, 2010 04:30 PM to Sep 16, 2010 06:30 PM): The Centre for Internet and Society is co-organising a workshop on Open Standards at the Internet Governance Forum on 16 September, 2010.
CPOV : Wikipedia Research Initiative: The Second event, towards building the Critical Point of View Reader on Wikipedia, brings a range of scholars, practitioners, theorists and activists to critically reflect on the state of Wikipedia in our contemporary Information Societies. Organised in Amsterdam, Netherlands, by the Institute of Network Cultures, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, the event builds on the debates and discussions initiated at the WikiWars that launched off the knowledge network in Bangalore in January 2010. Follow the Live Tweets at #CPOV
Arguments Against Software Patents in India: CIS believes that software patents are harmful for the software industry and for consumers. In this post, Pranesh Prakash looks at the philosophical, legal and practical reasons for holding such a position in India. This is a slightly modified version of a presentation made by Pranesh Prakash at the iTechLaw conference in Bangalore on February 5, 2010, as part of a panel discussing software patents in India, the United States, and the European Union.
Openness, Videos, Impressions: The one day Open Video Summit organised by the Centre for Internet & Society, iCommons, Open Video Alliance, and Magic Lantern, to bring together a range of stakeholders to discuss the possibilities, potentials, mechanics and politics of Open Video. Nishant Shah, who participated in the conversations, was invited to summarise the impressions and ideas that ensued in the day.
Mozilla Open Web Talks (TERI, 4th Main, 2nd Cross, Domlur II Stage Bangalore, from Dec 16, 2009 07:00 PM to Dec 16, 2009 09:00 PM): Give a talk, or just listen - On December 16 in Bangalore, Mozilla and The Centre for Internet and Society are holding an evening of talks about the future of the open internet.
Open Standards Workshop at IGF '09: The Centre for Internet and Society co-organized a workshop on 'Open Standards: A Rights-Based Framework' at the fourth Internet Governance Forum, at Sharm el-Sheikh. The panel was chaired by Aslam Raffee of Sun Microsystems and the panellists were Sir Tim Berners-Lee of W3C, Renu Budhiraja of India's DIT, Sunil Abraham of CIS, Steve Mutkoski of Microsoft, and Rishab Ghosh of UNU-MERIT.
Second Response to Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance: Another draft (labelled "version 2", dated May 26, 2009) of the draft national policy on open standards for e-governance was made available to Fosscomm, while many software companies were speaking out against NASSCOM's position on the policy. CIS drafted a second response addressing both the allegations against NASSCOM as well as the few shortcomings we perceive in the draft policy.
Letter on South Africa's IPRs from Publicly Financed R&D Regulations: Being interested in legislations in developing nations styled after the United States' Bayh-Dole Act, CIS responded to the call issued by the South African Department of Science and Technology for comments to the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Regulations.
An Interview With Arjen Kamphuis: In an email interview with the Centre for Internet and Society, Dutch open source activist Arjen Kamphuis discussed his experience of successfully working with the government for a policy mandating open standards for all government IT in the Netherlands.
Workshop on Reforming the International ICT Standardization System: On Day 4, the last day, of the Internet Governance Forum, a workshop was conducted by the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards on the reforming the international ICT standardisation system. The panellists were Bob Jolliffe of Freedom to Innovate South Africa, Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, Ashish Gautam of IBM India, and Aslam Raffee, Chairperson of the Government IT Officers' Council, OSS Working Group, Republic of South Africa, who moderated the session.
Report on Open Standards for GISW2008: In this report, Sunil Abraham lays out the importance and the policy implications of Open Standards.
DCOS Agreement on Procurement: On December 6, 2008, at the closing of the third Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India, the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS), of which the Centre for Internet and Society is a member, released an agreement entitled the "Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards".
First Meeting on a National Policy for Web Accessibility: The first meeting to discuss having a national policy for web accessibility to ensure universal and inclusive participation was held at the Centre for Internet and Society's office on 7 November 2008. It was aimed at formulating an action plan to work with the government and other private and public bodies to ensure conformity to accessibility standards for web sites.
Meeting on National Policy for e-Access for All: The world over, there is a move towards making the internet more accessible for persons with visual and print disabilities and for elderly persons. Many countries like the USA and UK have adopted legislation to make adherence to web accessibility standards mandatory. In India we are still relatively unaware of the importance of web accessibility. On Nov 7, 2008 at 11:00 am, the Centre for Internet and Society will host a meeting at the CIS office to discuss strategies and a plan of action to launch a campaign for making web content accessibility standards mandatory in India.
Meeting on National Policy for e-Access (Centre for Internet and Society, from Nov 07, 2008 11:00 AM to Nov 07, 2008 12:30 PM): This is a meeting of all persons and organisations who are interested in having a national standard for web accessibility and enforcing mandatory compliance by all Government web sites. The main agenda will be to dwell on the importance of web accessibility and chalk out a plan of action and strategy for its advocacy.
Response to the Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance: Pranesh Prakash, Programme Manager at the Centre for Internet and Society, authored a response to the draft Open Standards Policy document published by the National Informatics Centre, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.