Leading Global Standards Organizations Endorse 'OpenStand' Principles that Drive Innovation and Borderless Commerce

[IETF Chair <[e-mail]>]

The leaders of the IEEE Standards Association, the IAB, the IETF,
the Internet Society, and the W3C signed a statement affirming the
importance of a jointly developed set of principles establishing a
modern paradigm for global, open standards.  Below is a press release
about this event.  You can learn more about these principles at
www.open-stand.org.

Best wishes,
  Russ Housley
  IETF Chair

* * * * * * * * * *

Leading Global Standards Organizations Endorse 'OpenStand'
Principles that Drive Innovation and Borderless Commerce

IEEE, IAB, IETF, Internet Society and W3C Invite Other Standards
Organizations, Governments and Companies to Support Modern Paradigm
for Global, Open Standards 

PISCATAWAY, N.J., and WASHINGTON, D.C., United States; GENEVA,
Switzerland, and http://www.w3.org/ -- 29 August 2012 -- Five leading
global organizations -- IEEE, Internet Architecture Board (IAB),
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Society and
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) -- today announced that they have
signed a statement affirming the importance of a jointly developed set
of principles establishing a modern paradigm for global, open standards.
The shared "OpenStand" principles -- based on the effective and
efficient standardization processes that have made the Internet and
Web the premiere platforms for innovation and borderless commerce -- are
proven in their ability to foster competition and cooperation, support
innovation and interoperability and drive market success. 

IEEE, IAB, IETF, Internet Society and W3C invite other standards
organizations, governments, corporations and technology innovators
globally to endorse the principles, which are available at
open-stand.org.

The OpenStand principles strive to encapsulate that successful
standardization model and make it extendable across the contemporary,
global economy's gamut of technology spaces and markets. The principles
comprise a modern paradigm in which the economics of global
markets -- fueled by technological innovation -- drive global
deployment of standards, regardless of their formal status within
traditional bodies of national representation. The OpenStand principles
demand:

 * cooperation among standards organizations; 

 * adherence to due process, broad consensus, transparency, balance
   and openness in standards development;

 * commitment to technical merit, interoperability, competition,
   innovation and benefit to humanity;

 * availability of standards to all; and

 * voluntary adoption.

"New dynamics and pressures on global industry have driven changes in
the ways that standards are developed and adopted around the world,"
said Steve Mills, president of the IEEE Standards Association.
"Increasing globalization of markets, the rapid advancement of
technology and intensifying time-to-market demands have forced
industry to seek more efficient ways to define the global standards
that help expand global markets. The OpenStand principles foster the
more efficient international standardization paradigm that the world
needs."

Added Leslie Daigle, chief Internet technology officer with the Internet
Society: "International standards development for borderless economics
is not ad hoc; rather, it has a paradigm--one that has demonstrated
agility and is driven by technical merit. The OpenStand principles
convey the power of bottom-up collaboration in harnessing global
creativity and expertise to the standards of any technology space that
will underpin the modern economy moving forward."

Standards developed and adopted via the OpenStand principles include
IEEE standards for the Internet's physical connectivity, IETF standards
for end-to-end global Internet interoperability and the W3C standards
for the World Wide Web.

"The Internet and World Wide Web have fueled an economic and social
transformation, touching billions of lives. Efficient standardization
of so many technologies has been key to the success of the global
Internet," said Russ Housley, IETF chair. "These global standards were
developed with a focus toward technical excellence and deployed through
collaboration of many participants from all around the world. The
results have literally changed the world, surpassing anything that has
ever been achieved through any other standards-development model."

Globally adopted design-automation standards, which have paved the way
for a giant leap forward in industry's ability to define complex
electronic solutions, provide another example of standards developed in
the spirit of the OpenStand principles. Another technology space that
figures to demand such standards over the next decades is the global
smart-grid effort, which seeks to augment regional facilities for
electricity generation, distribution, delivery and consumption with a
two-way, end-to-end network for communications and control.

"Think about all that the Internet and Web have enabled over the past
30 years, completely transforming society, government and commerce,"
said W3C chief executive officer Jeff Jaffe. "It is remarkable that a
small number of organizations following a small number of principles
have had such a huge impact on humanity, innovation and competition in
global markets."

Bernard Aboba, chair of the IAB: "The Internet has been built on
specifications adopted voluntarily across the globe. By valuing
running code, interoperability and deployment above formal status,
the Internet has democratized the development of standards, enabling
specifications originally developed outside of standards organizations
to gain recognition based on their technical merit and adoption,
contributing to the creation of global communities benefiting
humanity. We now invite standards organizations, as well as
governments, companies and individuals to join us at open-stand.org
in order to affirm the principles that have nurtured the Internet
and underpin many other important standards -- and will continue to
do so."