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.
- Openness, Videos, Impressions — by Nishant Shah — last modified Sep 22, 2011 12:23 PM
- 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.
- Open Standards Workshop at IGF '09 — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Aug 23, 2011 02:54 AM
- 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 — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Jul 07, 2009 04:49 PM
- 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 — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Aug 04, 2011 04:42 AM
- 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 — by Sanchia de Souza — last modified Aug 18, 2011 05:01 AM
- 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 — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Aug 23, 2011 02:56 AM
- 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 — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Jan 05, 2009 06:52 AM
- In this report, Sunil Abraham lays out the importance and the policy implications of Open Standards.
- DCOS Agreement on Procurement — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Aug 23, 2011 02:58 AM
- 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".
- Report on Open Standards for GISW 2008 — by Pranesh Prakash — last modified Aug 23, 2011 02:57 AM
- A report on Open Standards prepared by Sunil Abraham, for the Global Information Society Watch 2008. As on their site, GISWatch focuses on monitoring progress made towards implementing the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) action agenda and other international and national commitments related to information and communications. It also provides analytical overviews of institutions involved in implementation.
- Response to the Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance — by Sunil Abraham — last modified Aug 23, 2011 03:05 AM
- 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.
