# Open standard

> A public rulebook anyone can follow, so products from different makers work together.

- Level: Intermediate
- Topics: Software
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/open-standard/
- In Spanish: [Estándar abierto](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/open-standard/)

A **standard** is a written specification of how something must work: the shape of a plug, the format of a file, the messages two computers exchange. A standard is **open** when anyone can read it and build products that follow it without asking one company for permission. Typically it is written and maintained through a public process by a standards body, such as the W3C and WHATWG for the web, the IETF for internet protocols, the IEEE for Wi-Fi or ISO for many industrial formats, and it can be implemented royalty-free or under fair, published terms.

Familiar examples are everywhere. **HTML** is open, so any company can build a web browser and any person can publish a web page that all of them can show. **USB** is published by an industry group, which is why one cable fits laptops, phones and printers from different brands. **PDF** started as Adobe's format, but Adobe published it and in 2008 it became the ISO 32000 standard, so countless programs can create and read PDFs. TCP/IP, HTTP and Unicode are open standards too.

"Open" is a spectrum, not a yes or no. Some standards are free to read and free to implement; others require buying the document or paying patent licenses, and people disagree on whether those count. An open standard is also different from open source: the standard is the rulebook, while open source code is one particular implementation of it. And a **de facto standard**, a format everyone uses because one product became dominant, may still be controlled by a single company. The payoff of open standards is interoperability, competition and files that can still be read decades later.

## An analogy

Like the rules of football. They are published for everyone, so any club can form a team, any company can make the balls and any stadium can host a match, and everything fits together without asking one owner for permission.

## Keep in mind

- Anyone can read it and build products that follow it.
- Usually maintained by a standards body through a public process.
- HTML, USB, PDF, TCP/IP and Unicode are well-known examples.
- Not the same as open source, and not the same as a de facto standard.

## Go deeper

- [Open standard on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard)
- [About W3C standards](https://www.w3.org/standards/about/)
- [About USB-IF](https://www.usb.org/about)

## Related terms

- [Internet](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/internet/): A worldwide network of networks that lets any connected device reach any other.
- [Wi-Fi](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/wi-fi/): Networking over radio waves: the internet without the cable, within a few rooms.
- [HTML](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/html/): The text format that describes what is on a web page: headings, paragraphs, links.
- [Web browser](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/web-browser/): The app that fetches web pages from the internet and draws them on your screen.
- [USB](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/usb/): The standard plug for connecting and charging almost everything.
- [Adobe](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/adobe/): The company behind Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Acrobat and the PDF format.
- [TCP and UDP](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/tcp-and-udp/): Two ways to send packets: TCP checks everything arrives, UDP just sends and moves on.
- [IP address](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/ip-address/): The number that identifies a device on a network, like a postal address.