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A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise contributing to the usefulness of
technical standard A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, ...
s to those who employ them. Such an organization works to create uniformity across producers, consumers, government agencies, and other relevant parties regarding terminology, product specifications (e.g. size, including units of measure), protocols, and more. Its goals could include ensuring that Company A's external hard drive works on Company B's computer, an individual's blood pressure measures the same with Company C's sphygmomanometer as it does with Company D's, or that all shirts that should not be ironed have the same icon (a clothes iron crossed out with an X) on the label. Most standards are voluntary in the sense that they are offered for adoption by people or industry without being mandated in law. Some standards become mandatory when they are adopted by regulators as legal requirements in particular domains, often for the purpose of safety or for
consumer protection Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent business ...
from deceitful practices. The term ''formal standard'' refers specifically to a specification that has been approved by a standards setting organization. The term ''
de jure In law and government, ''de jure'' ( ; , "by law") describes practices that are legally recognized, regardless of whether the practice exists in reality. In contrast, ("in fact") describes situations that exist in reality, even if not legall ...
standard'' refers to a standard mandated by legal requirements or refers generally to any formal standard. In contrast, the term '' de facto standard'' refers to a specification (or protocol or technology) that has achieved widespread use and acceptance – often without being approved by any standards organization (or receiving such approval only after it already has achieved widespread use). Examples of de facto standards that were not approved by any standards organizations (or at least not approved until after they were in widespread ''de facto'' use) include the Hayes command set developed by
Hayes Hayes may refer to: * Hayes (surname), including a list of people with the name ** Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th president of the United States * Hayes (given name) Businesses * Hayes Brake, an American designer and manufacturer of disc brakes * Hay ...
,
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...
's TrueType font design and the PCL protocol used by
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
in the
computer printer In computing, a printer is a peripheral machine which makes a persistent representation of graphics or text, usually on paper. While most output is human-readable, bar code printers are an example of an expanded use for printers. Diffe ...
s they produced. Normally, the term ''standards organization'' is not used to refer to the individual parties participating within the standards developing organization in the capacity of founders, benefactors, stakeholders, members or contributors, who themselves may function as or lead the standards organizations.


History


Standardization

The implementation of standards in industry and commerce became highly important with the onset of the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
and the need for high-precision
machine tool A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. Al ...
s and
interchangeable parts Interchangeable parts are parts (components) that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely r ...
.
Henry Maudslay Henry Maudslay ( pronunciation and spelling) (22 August 1771 – 14 February 1831) was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were ...
developed the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe in 1800, which allowed for the standardization of
screw thread A screw thread, often shortened to thread, is a helical structure used to convert between rotational and linear movement or force. A screw thread is a ridge wrapped around a cylinder or cone in the form of a helix, with the former being called ...
sizes for the first time. Maudslay's work, as well as the contributions of other engineers, accomplished a modest amount of industry standardization; some companies' in-house standards spread a bit within their industries.
Joseph Whitworth Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet (21 December 1803 – 22 January 1887) was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for scre ...
's screw thread measurements were adopted as the first (unofficial) national standard by companies around the country in 1841. It came to be known as the
British Standard Whitworth British Standard Whitworth (BSW) is an imperial-unit-based screw thread standard, devised and specified by Joseph Whitworth in 1841 and later adopted as a British Standard. It was the world's first national screw thread standard, and is the basi ...
, and was widely adopted in other countries.


Early standards organizations

By the end of the 19th century differences in standards between companies was making trade increasingly difficult and strained. For instance, an iron and steel dealer recorded his displeasure in ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...
'': "Architects and engineers generally specify such unnecessarily diverse types of sectional material or given work that anything like economical and continuous manufacture becomes impossible. In this country no two professional men are agreed upon the size and weight of a
girder A girder () is a support beam used in construction. It is the main horizontal support of a structure which supports smaller beams. Girders often have an I-beam cross section composed of two load-bearing ''flanges'' separated by a stabilizin ...
to employ for given work". The Engineering Standards Committee was established in London in 1901 as the world's first national standards body.Robert C. McWilliam. ''BSI: The First Hundred Years. 1901–2001. A Century of Achievement''. 2001. Thanet Press. London It subsequently extended its standardization work and became the British Engineering Standards Association in 1918, adopting the name British Standards Institution in 1931 after receiving its Royal Charter in 1929. The national standards were adopted universally throughout the country, and enabled the markets to act more rationally and efficiently, with an increased level of cooperation. After the
First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, similar national bodies were established in other countries. The
Deutsches Institut für Normung ' (DIN; in English, the German Institute for Standardisation Registered Association) is the German national organization for standardization and is the German ISO member body. DIN is a German Registered Association ('' e.V.'') headquartered ...
was set up in Germany in 1917, followed by its counterparts, the American National Standard Institute and the French Commission Permanente de Standardisation, both in 1918.


International organizations

Several international organizations create international standards, such as
Codex Alimentarius The Codex Alimentarius () is a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines, and other recommendations published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations relating to food, food productio ...
in food, the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...
Guidelines in health, or
ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Union ...
Recommendations in ICT and being publicly funded, are freely available for consideration and use worldwide.


International standards associations

In 1904, Crompton represented Britain at the
Louisiana Purchase Exposition The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an World's fair, international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds tota ...
in St. Louis,
Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
, as part of a delegation by the Institute of Electrical Engineers. He presented a paper on standardization, which was so well received that he was asked to look into the formation of a commission to oversee the process. By 1906 his work was complete and he drew up a permanent terms for the
International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and ...
. The body held its first meeting that year in London, with representatives from 14 countries. In honour of his contribution to electrical standardization, Lord Kelvin was elected as the body's first President. The International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA) was founded in 1926 with a broader remit to enhance international cooperation for all technical standards and specifications. The body was suspended in 1942 during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. After the war, ISA was approached by the recently formed United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) with a proposal to form a new global standards body. In October 1946, ISA and UNSCC delegates from 25 countries met in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and agreed to join forces to create the new
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...
; the new organization officially began operations in February 1947.


Overview

Standards organizations can be classified by their role, position, and the extent of their influence on the local, national, regional, and global standardization arena. By geographic designation, there are international, regional, and national standards bodies (the latter often referred to as NSBs). By technology or industry designation, there are standards developing organizations (SDOs) and also standards setting organizations (SSOs) also known as consortia. Standards organizations may be governmental, quasi-governmental or non-governmental entities. Quasi- and non-governmental standards organizations are often non-profit organizations.


International standards organizations

Broadly, an international standards organization develops international standards. (This does not necessarily restrict the use of other published standards internationally.) There are many international standards organizations. The three largest and most well-established such organizations are the
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...
(ISO), the
International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and ...
(IEC), and the
International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...
(ITU), which have each existed for more than 50 years (founded in 1947, 1906, and 1865, respectively) and are all based in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...
,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. They have established tens of thousands of standards covering almost every conceivable topic. Many of these are then adopted worldwide replacing various incompatible "homegrown" standards. Many of these standards are naturally evolved from those designed in-house within an industry, or by a particular country, while others have been built from scratch by groups of experts who sit on various technical committees (TCs). These three organizations together comprise the
World Standards Cooperation World Standards Cooperation (WSC) is an alliance of the IEC, ISO and ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technolo ...
(WSC) alliance. ISO is composed of the national standards bodies (NSBs), one per member economy. The IEC is similarly composed of national committees, one per member economy. In some cases, the national committee to the IEC of an economy may also be the ISO member from that country or economy. ISO and IEC are private international organizations that are not established by any international treaty. Their members may be non-governmental organizations or governmental agencies, as selected by ISO and IEC (which are privately established organizations). The ITU is a treaty-based organization established as a permanent agency of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...
, in which governments are the primary members, although other organizations (such as non-governmental organizations and individual companies) can also hold a form of direct membership status in the ITU as well. Another example of a treaty-based international standards organization with government membership is the Codex Alimentarius Commission. In addition to these, a large variety of independent international standards organizations such as the ASME, the ASTM International, th
International Commission on Illumination (CIE)
the
IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...
, the
Internet Engineering Task Force The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements an ...
(IETF), SAE International,
TAPPI TAPPI is a registered not-for-profit, international Non-Governmental Organization of about 14,000 member engineers, scientists, managers, academics and others involved in the areas of pulp, and paper. In addition to pulp and paper, the TAPPI memb ...
, the
World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working ...
(W3C), and the
Universal Postal Union The Universal Postal Union (UPU, french: link=no, Union postale universelle), established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to ...
(UPU) develop and publish standards for a variety of international uses. In many such cases, these international standards organizations are not based on the principle of one member per country. Rather, membership in such organizations is open to those interested in joining and willing to agree to the organization's by-laws – having either organizational/corporate or individual technical experts as members. The Airlines Electronic Engineering Committee (AEEC) was formed in 1949 to prepare avionics system engineering standards with other aviation organizations RTCA, EUROCAE, and ICAO. The standards are widely known as the ARINC Standards.


Regional standards organizations

Regional standards bodies also exist, such as the
European Committee for Standardization The European Committee for Standardization (CEN, french: Comité Européen de Normalisation) is a public standards organization whose mission is to foster the economy of the European Single Market and the wider European continent in global t ...
(CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), and the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) in Europe, the Pacific Area Standards Congress (PASC), the Pan American Standards Commission (COPANT), the
African Organisation for Standardisation African Organization for Standardization is an Intergovernmental organization of 42 countries of Africa. It also led the continental program Eco Mark Africa. History It was formed by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and Organisation ...
(ARSO), the
Arabic industrial development and mining organization Arabic Industrial Development and Mining Organization (AIDMO)( ar, المنظمة العربية للتنمية الصناعية والتعدين) History In a summit in Kuwait in 1966 the Arab League decided to establish an organization to improv ...
(AIDMO), and others. In the European Union, only standards created by CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI are recognized as ''European standards'' (according to Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012), and member states are required to notify the European Commission and each other about all the draft technical regulations concerning ICT products and services before they are adopted in national law.European Union
Directive 98/34/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations
''Official Journal L'' é04, 21.7.1998, p. 37–48. (This page also provides references to amendments.) See also European Commission: Enterprise Directorate-General
Vademecum on European Standardisation
(This document contains a consolidated version of Directive 98/34/EC, dated 15 November 2003.) Accessed 2009-05-05.
These rules were laid down in Directive 98/34/EC with the goal of providing transparency and control with regard to technical regulations. Sub-regional standards organizations also exist such as the MERCOSUR Standardization Association (AMN), the
CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality The CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) is a regional International standard, standards body for the Caribbean Community CARICOM bloc of countries. Partnering national bureaus * – Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of S ...
(CROSQ), and the ASEAN Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ), EAC East Africa Standards Committee www.eac-quality.net, and the GCC Standardization Organization (GSO) for
Arab States of the Persian Gulf The Arab states of the Persian Gulf refers to a group of Arab states which border the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emir ...
.


National standards bodies

In general, each country or economy has a single recognized national standards body (NSB). A national standards body is likely the sole member from that economy in ISO; ISO currently has 161 members. National standards bodies usually do not prepare the technical content of standards, which instead is developed by national technical societies. NSBs may be either public or private sector organizations, or combinations of the two. For example, the Standards Council of Canada is a Canadian
Crown Corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...
, Dirección General de Normas is a governmental agency within the Mexican Ministry of Economy, and ANSI is a
501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...
non-profit U.S. organization with members from both the private and public sectors. The
National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...
(NIST), the U.S. government's standards agency, cooperates with ANSI under a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the United States Standards Strategy. The determinates of whether an NSB for a particular economy is a public or private sector body may include the historical and traditional roles that the private sector fills in public affairs in that economy or the development stage of that economy.


Standards developing organizations (SDOs)

A ''national standards body'' (NSB) generally refers to one standardization organization that is that country’s member of the ISO. A ''standards developing organization'' (SDO) is one of the thousands of industry- or sector-based standards organizations that develop and publish industry specific standards. Some economies feature only an NSB with no other SDOs. Large economies like the United States and Japan have several hundred SDOs, many of which are coordinated by the central NSBs of each country (ANSI and JISC in this case). In some cases, international industry-based SDOs such as th
CIE
the
IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...
and the
Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...
(AES) may have direct liaisons with international standards organizations, having input to international standards without going through a national standards body. SDOs are differentiated from standards setting organizations (SSOs) in that SDOs may be accredited to develop standards using open and transparent processes.


Scope of work

Developers of technical standards are generally concerned with
interface standard In telecommunications, an interface standard is a standard that describes one or more functional characteristics (such as code conversion, line assignments, or protocol compliance) or physical characteristics (such as electrical, mechanical, or o ...
s, which detail how products interconnect with each other, and safety standards, which established characteristics ensure that a product or process is safe for humans, animals, and the environment. The subject of their work can be narrow or broad. Another area of interest is in defining how the behavior and performance of products is measured and described in data sheets. Overlapping or competing standards bodies tend to cooperate purposefully, by seeking to define boundaries between the scope of their work, and by operating in a hierarchical fashion in terms of national, regional and international scope; international organizations tend to have as members national organizations; and standards emerging at national level (such as BS 5750) can be adopted at regional levels (BS 5750 was adopted as EN 29000) and at international levels (BS 5750 was adopted as ISO 9000). Unless adopted by a government, standards carry no force in law. However, most jurisdictions have truth in advertising laws, and ambiguities can be reduced if a company offers a product that is "compliant" with a standard.


Standards development process

When an organization develops standards that may be used openly, it is common to have formal rules published regarding the process. This may include: * Who is allowed to vote and provide input on new or revised standards * What is the formal step-by-step process * How are bias and commercial interests handled * How negative votes or ballots are handled * What type of consensus is required Though it can be a tedious and lengthy process, formal standard setting is essential to developing new technologies. For example, since 1865, the telecommunications industry has depended on the
ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Union ...
to establish the telecommunications standards that have been adopted worldwide. The ITU has created numerous telecommunications standards including telegraph specifications, allocation of telephone numbers, interference protection, and protocols for a variety of communications technologies. The standards that are created through standards organizations lead to improved product quality, ensured
interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...
of competitors’ products, and they provide a technological baseline for future research and product development. Formal standard setting through standards organizations has numerous benefits for consumers including increased innovation, multiple market participants, reduced production costs, and the efficiency effects of product interchangeability. To support the standard development process, ISO published Good Standardization Practices (GSP) and the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee published the "Six Principles" guiding members in the development of international standards.


Standards distribution and copyright

Some standards – such as the SIF Specification in K12 education – are managed by a non-profit organizations composed of public entities and private entities working in cooperation that then publish the standards under an open license at no charge and requiring no registration. A technical library at a university may have copies of technical standards on hand. Major libraries in large cities may also have access to many technical standards. Some users of standards mistakenly assume that all standards are in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
. This assumption is correct only for standards produced by the
central government A central government is the government that is a controlling power over a unitary state. Another distinct but sovereign political entity is a federal government, which may have distinct powers at various levels of government, authorized or del ...
s whose publications are not amenable to
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
or to organizations that issue their standard under an open license. Any standards produced by non-governmental entities remain the
intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
of their developers (unless specifically designed otherwise) and are protected, just like any other
publication To publish is to make content available to the general public.Berne Conve ...
s, by
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
laws and international
treaties A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...
. However, the intellectual property extends only to the standard itself and not to its use. For instance if a company sells a device that is compliant with a given standard, it is not liable for further payment to the standards organization except in the special case when the organization holds patent rights or some other ownership of the intellectual property described in the standard. It is, however, liable for any patent infringement by its implementation, just as with any other implementation of technology. The standards organizations give no guarantees that patents relevant to a given standard have been identified. ISO standards draw attention to this in the foreword with a statement like the following: "Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights". If the standards organization is aware that parts of a given standard fall under patent protection, it will often require the patent holder to agree to Reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing before including it in the standard. Such an agreement is regarded as a legally binding contract, as in the 2012 case ''
Microsoft v. Motorola ''Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola Inc.'', 696 F.3d 872 (9th Cir. 2012) was a United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit case about Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) Licensing and foreign anti-suit injunction. The case was origina ...
''.


Trends

The ever-quickening pace of technology evolution is now more than ever affecting the way new standards are proposed, developed and implemented. Since traditional, widely respected standards organizations tend to operate at a slower pace than technology evolves, many standards they develop are becoming less relevant because of the inability of their developers to keep abreast with the technological innovation. As a result, a new class of standards setters appeared on the
standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardizatio ...
arena: the industry consortia or standards setting organizations (SSOs), which are also referred to as private standards. Despite having limited financial resources, some of them enjoy truly international acceptance. One example is the
World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working ...
(W3C), whose standards for
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaS ...
,
CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone technolo ...
, and
XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
are used universally. There are also community-driven associations such as the
Internet Engineering Task Force The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements an ...
(IETF), a worldwide network of volunteers who collaborate to set standards for lower-level software solutions. Some industry-driven standards development efforts don't even have a formal organizational structure. They are projects funded by large corporations. Among them are the OpenOffice.org, an
Apache Software Foundation The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the ...
-sponsored international community of volunteers working on an open-standard software that aims to compete with
Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketin ...
, and two commercial groups competing fiercely with each other to develop an industry-wide standard for high-density optical storage. Another example is the Global Food Safety Initiative where members of the
Consumer Goods Forum The Consumer Goods Forum is a global organization of 400 consumer goods companies with the likes of Amazon and Kellogg being involved. It represents combined sales of 2.5 trillion Euros across 70 countries and 10 million employees. Overview The C ...
define benchmarking requirements and recognize scheme owners using private standards for
food safety Food safety (or food hygiene) is used as a scientific method/discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent food-borne illness. The occurrence of two or more cases of a similar illness resulting from ...
.


See also

*
Coordination game A coordination game is a type of simultaneous game found in game theory. It describes the situation where a player will earn a higher payoff when they select the same course of action as another player. The game is not one of pure conflict, which r ...
*
International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in A ...
* List of computer standards * List of international common standards *
List of technical standard organizations This is a list of technical standardization organizations. International standards organizations * 3GPP – 3rd Generation Partnership Project * 3GPP2 – 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 * ABYC – The American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC ...
*
Quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach place ...
* Reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing * Software standard * Specification (technical standard) *
Standardization Standardization or standardisation is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organizations and governments. Standardizatio ...
*
Technical standard A technical standard is an established norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, ...
* Transport standards organisations


References


External links


ANSI: directory of standards developing organizations

CEN: standards consortia for information and communication technologies

NIST: global standards information
{{DEFAULTSORT:Standards Organization Product testing