Open Standards
"Open Standards" are standards made available to the general public and are developed (or approved) and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. "Open Standards" facilitate interoperability and data exchange among different products or services and are intended for widespread adoption.
Other elements of "Open Standards" include, but are not limited to:
- Collaborative process – voluntary and market driven development (or approval) following a transparent consensus driven process that is reasonably open to all interested parties.
- Reasonably balanced – ensures that the process is not dominated by any one interest group.
- Due process - includes consideration of and response to comments by interested parties.
- Intellectual property rights (IPRs) – IPRs essential to implement the standard to be licensed to all applicants on a worldwide, non-discriminatory basis, either (1) for free and under other reasonable terms and conditions or (2) on reasonable terms and conditions (which may include monetary compensation). Negotiations are left to the parties concerned and are performed outside the SDO.
- Quality and level of detail – sufficient to permit the development of a variety of competing implementations of interoperable products or services. Standardized interfaces are not hidden, or controlled other than by the SDO promulgating the standard.
- Publicly available – easily available for implementation and use, at a reasonable price. Publication of the text of a standard by others is permitted only with the prior approval of the SDO.
- On-going support – maintained and supported over a long period of time.
Standardization
Standardization is the process of developing, promoting and possibly mandating standards-based and compatible technologies and processes within a given industry. Standards for technologies can mandate the quality and consistency of technologies and ensure their compatibility, interoperability and safety. Standards organizations such as ANSI (American National Standards Institute), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) exist to promote standardization and endorse official standards (also known as de jure standards) for given applications. A lack of standardization often manifests in large numbers of incompatible proprietary formats for a given technology and for technologies that must interoperate. That all-too-common situation hinders the adoption and advancement of the technology and industry.
The burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) is a current case in point. The main purpose of the IoT is enabling almost any object imaginable to be connected and to transmit data over the Internet. Although that scenario is increasingly becoming realized, incompatible formats and market fragmentation are slowing adoption.
Multistakeholder
Multistakeholder is a collective decision-making that allows the Internet to evolve with in the various stakeholders in the internet ecosystem. It is a driving day-to-day work and strategic direction in what we used to think of as largely intergovernmental decision-makers. It is a way of doing things that can be used anywhere, from solving a specific problem or to helping an institution evolve. The multistakeholder principles that have made the Internet such a success are increasingly being used to make the Internet’s policy and governance space work. They are now an accepted international norm for how the Internet is governed.
A Multistakeholder Model is an organizational framework or structure which adopts the multistakeholder process of governance or policy making, which aims to bring together the primary stakeholders such as businesses, civil society, governments, research institutions and non-government organizations to cooperate and participate in the dialogue, decision making and implementation of solutions to common problems or goals. A stakeholder refers to an individual, group or organization that has a direct or indirect interest or stake in a particular organization; that is, a given action has the ability to influence the organization's actions, decisions and policies to achieve results.
The Multistakeholder Governance Attributes are:
- Inclusiveness and transparency;
- Collective responsibility;
- Effective decision-making and implementation;
- Collaboration through distributed and interoperable governance.
- Stakeholders work towards a common goal
- Work involves different sectors and scale
- The objective is focused to bring about change
- Deal with structural changes
- Agreements are created based on cooperation
- Stakeholders deal with power and conflict consciously
- Bottom-up and top-down strategies are integrated in governance and policy making
Digital Divide
Digital divide is a term that refers to the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern information and communications technology, and those that don't or have restricted access. This technology can include the telephone, television, personal computers and the Internet.
It refers to any inequalities between groups or countries measured in terms of access to, use of, or knowledge of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Digital divide inside any country refers to inequalities mainly among individuals and households. Some researchers suggest that digital divide is not only about gap in access and connectivity to ICTs only but extends into political and cultural realm of any society
Net Neutrality
Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers and governments regulating the Internet should treat all data on the Internet the same, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication. The term was coined by Columbia University media law professor Tim Wu in 2003, as an extension of the longstanding concept of a common carrier, which was used to describe the role of telephone systems.
