Open source communities move quickly, value running code, and docs are best effort at best. Standards move slowly, value precise specs, and negotiate compromises for broad alignment. Given these differences, why would open source communities fraternize with standards orgs? Standards orgs such as IETF and MEF realize they need to change to remain relevant. By embracing open source, standards orgs benefit from the speed and collaborative spirit of open source and get timely feedback on the clarity and correctness of standards as they evolve in parallel with running code. Open source communities gain users, address additional use cases, and gain the stability of standards to ease integration efforts and avoid forks. This session explores this evolution in standards orgs, highlights areas of mutual interest, and shares ideas on the benefit of closer collaboration.
Please note that this talk replaces one entitled "Open Source for students, by students" that was due to have been given by Kristin Yim. Also this talk was originally scheduled to be given at 10:00.
By collaborating with standards organizations and supporting existing and evolving standards, the open source community gains users, address a larger set of use cases, and benefit from the stability of standards that can help avoid harmful forking and ease integration efforts. Standards orgs benefit from the speed and collaborative spirit characteristics of open source, and they gain timely and critical feedback on the clarity and correctness of their standards as they evolve iteratively and in parallel with the open source code. The end result is open source code that is more consumable by industry, and standards that are more consumable by the open source community.
Speakers: Charles Eckel