This post was published 6 years 2 months 5 days ago. Therefore, it may well be out of date. Do not reply on the contents of this post being accurate. Anyone wanting a good understanding of the difference between open standards and open source should check out Bob Sutor’s essay. It’s clear, concise and easy to follow.
Bob is Vice President of Standards and Open Source at IBM. In his IBM Blog he’s just published Part 3 of a four part series on open standards vs. open source.
Bob’s collated the first three parts into a single essay. Part 1 focuses on Standards, Part 2 on Software and Part 3 on Open Source Software. Throughout the essay Bob uses easy to follow analogies and examples and avoids the use of unnecessary jargon (clearly explaining it where it’s unavoidable).
If you’re an expert or even competent in theses areas then this essay may be a bit too high-level for you (you really should know it already), however, if you’re looking for a place to start or increase your understanding of ‘open’ in today’s technological world then this is a great place to start.
I’m looking forward to reading Part 4, the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Connection, as soon as Bob gets a chance to post it.