How does open source software work with open systems/open standards?
Open standards can aid open source software projects: • Open standards make it easier for users to (later) adopt an open source software program, because users of open standards aren’t locked into a particular implementation. Instead, users who are careful to use open standards can easily switch to a different implementation, including an OSS implementation. • Open standards also make it easier for OSS developers to create their projects, because the standard itself helps developers know what to do. Creating any interface is an effort, and having a pre-defined standard helps reduce that effort greatly. Note that open standards aid proprietary software in exactly the same way. OSS aids open standards, too: • OSS implementations can help create and keep open standards open. A FLOSS implementation can be read and modified by anyone; such implementations can quickly become a working reference model (a “sample implementation” or an “executable specification”) that demonstrates what the spec
