An Empirical Examination of Open Standards Development

Abstract

This project uses empirical data to provide insights into the impact of open standards. This work moves beyond the existing literature by considering a large number of open standards, instead of handpicked case studies. The results of this research will be timely, as governments are advocating and sometimes mandating the use of open standards. We found inequalities in the impact of open standards that suggest a power law relationship, found that the duration of the development process does not affect the impact of a standard, and found the length of a standard (number of words), which reflects the technical complexity of a standard, affects the impact of a standard.