W3C Open Standard Development

As one of the important provider of IST Standards, in the area of Web technologies (XML, http, HTML, CSS, WAI, etc), the international World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is well positionned to give its opinion on the matter of Open Standards definition.

W3C follows a process that promotes the development of high-quality standards. This process has evolved over a period of ten years, from a very rough consensus building approach of writing specifications, to a formal set of obligations that promote fairness, responsiveness, and progress: all facets of the W3C mission.

Using the W3C process as a model, we present the set of requirements that a provider of technical specification must follow to qualify for the adjective Open Standard.