Best Practices for Standards Communities

The technical standards world is in danger of being broken, hijacked, and exploited by partisan legal and political maneuvering. Today we confront a pivotal moment in the world of technology standards, one that also involves the global economy and ecology. The need to rebuild our financial infrastructure and implement ways to preserve and conserve the environment has given many in the technical community a moment of clarity with regard to the role standards must play in these times. There is a growing realization that while the technical standards world has functioned well enough for decades, the system is in danger of being broken, hijacked, and exploited by partisan legal and political maneuvering. Many of us now recognize an opportunity to restore trust and implement consistent and pervasive safeguards in the standards community.