Interoperability and democracy: A political basis for open document standards

This paper employs democratic theory as a method of inquiry into the political implications of openness in information and communication technology (ICT) standards. Our account describes four ways in which ICT standards have political implications in democratic societies: standards can have implications for other democratic processes; standards can affect the broader social conditions relevant to democracy; the content and material implications of standards can themselves constitute substantive political issues; and lastly, the internal processes of standards-setting can be viewed politically. After providing examples of these political implications, we examine various conceptions of openness in ICT standards and describe a maximal definition of openness as a conceptual pole that anchors one end of the spectrum of potential standards policy options. We then develop some guidelines as to the contexts in which democratic values require a greater degree of openness in both the substance of technical standards and their development. In particular, we examine the function of documents and document formats in democratic governments and suggest that movements toward open document standards are highly beneficial in democratic societies.