Scaffolding The New Web: Standards And Standards Policy For The Digital Economy
by James Schneider /
2000 / English / PDF
6.7 MB Download
Although much of the growing digital economy rests on the Internet
and World Wide Web, which in turn rest on information technology
standards, it is unclear how much longer the current momentum can
be sustained absent new standards. To discover whether today's
standards processes are adequate, where they are taking the
industry, and whether government intervention will be required to
address systemic failures in their development, RAND undertook five
case studies. So far, it seems, the current standards process
remains basically healthy, with various consortia taking up the
reins of the process, and the rise of open-source software has also
aided vendor-neutral standardization. Nevertheless, the prospects
for semantic standards to fulfill XML's promise are uncertain. Can
the federal government help? Its policy on software patents clearly
merits revisiting.
Although much of the growing digital economy rests on the Internet
and World Wide Web, which in turn rest on information technology
standards, it is unclear how much longer the current momentum can
be sustained absent new standards. To discover whether today's
standards processes are adequate, where they are taking the
industry, and whether government intervention will be required to
address systemic failures in their development, RAND undertook five
case studies. So far, it seems, the current standards process
remains basically healthy, with various consortia taking up the
reins of the process, and the rise of open-source software has also
aided vendor-neutral standardization. Nevertheless, the prospects
for semantic standards to fulfill XML's promise are uncertain. Can
the federal government help? Its policy on software patents clearly
merits revisiting.
