Unix and other Open Standards:
A Free Market for Software

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Benefits of Open Standards

Products that follow open standards are more interchangeable and interoperable. Since it's easier for users to switch among open standard products, such products compete with each other on a level playing field in order to win and retain customers. This generally leads to higher quality products and better value.

Some examples of open standards in the computing world:

  • Unix compatible operating systems such as BSD and Linux.
  • POSIX: Defines a program's interface to hardware and the operating system
  • TCP/IP: Defines how computers communicate with each other at the lowest level over network interfaces such as Ethernet.
  • Open Document Format: Defines the file format used by popular office suites such as OpenOffice.org.
  • USB and FireWire: Hardware and protocol specifications for communication (usually with peripheral devices like printers, keyboards, external disks, etc.)
  • The X11, QT and GTK graphics programming APIs
  • OpenGL, a cross-platform 2D and 3D graphics library.

In contrast, proprietary products (those that don't follow standards and are incompatible with competing products) tend to trap customers who have invested in them. Since these customers have programs that won't run on other systems, documents that can't be read by other systems, and equipment that cannot communicate with other systems, switching to a competing product often requires too great an investment of time and other resources to make it worthwhile. As a result, vendors are less motivated to provide quality products at competetive prices.

Some examples of proprietary products which are incompatible with competing products:

  • Microsoft Windows
  • IBM MVS (A.K.A. OS/390, z/OS)
  • Apple's Mac OS 9 and earlier (Mac OS X is largely Unix compatible, and POSIX certified.)
  • Apple's Mac Aqua, Carbon, Cocoa APIs