Running Code as Part of an Open Standards Policy

Abstract

Governments around the world are considering implementing or even mandating open standards policies. They believe these policies will provide economic, socio-political, and technical benefits. In this article, we analyze Massachusetts's open standards policy as applied to document formats. This policy was known as the open formats policy, and Massachusetts believed it would offer substantial economic and technological benefits. However, our analysis shows these benefits never emerged. The failure of the open formats policy is due to the lack of running code. Running code refers to multiple independent, interoperable implementations of an open standard. With running code, users have choice in their adoption of a software product. Choice brings about economic and technological benefits. Consequently, we urge governments to incorporate a "running code" requirement when adopting an open standards policy.