Are open standards important?
Yes. Royalty-free, published standards permit free market competition. Without common standards, monopolists can use lock-in tactics to take ownership of a field of computing. When a field of computing is ruled by a monopoly, a standard exists but it is a secret proprietary standard. As we break down each monopoly, we must replace there file formats with royalty-free, published formats so that companies can’t use secret file formats to enforce future monopolies. Where public standards already exist, we must realise their value, apply them to our own work, and also mandate that software companies adhere to them. The W3C web standards are a great example of public standards.
