A project, started by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, gathered government officials from China, India, Thailand, denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere for a three-day meeting in Silicon Valley in February to discuss technology standards and economic development. The meeting was followed by e-mail exchanges, conference calls and postings on a shared Web site. Th output of this project is a report that was presented at the World Bank, that will urge nations to adopt open-information technology standards as a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation.The group defines an open standard as technology that is not owned by a single company and is openly published.The report makes clear that government policy should "mandate technology choice, not software development models."

It also points out that open technology standards - the digital equivalent of a common gauge for railroad tracks - are not the same thing as open-source software. Open source is a development model for software in which code is freely shared and improved by a cooperative network of programmers.

Source: NY Times (Registration Required)



Prashanth RaiTag(s):Open Source.