If you have an old document dated back to the days of DOS, you probably would have difficulties opening and reading it. However, if we knew that the old document was in some kind of open standard format, then it would be much easier to find an application that could open it.

The Internet has reached about two billion users after nearly 42 years. This huge success originates from open transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) standard suites. However, there are many questions about open standards. For example, how do open standards come into being? How do they influence technologies and products? What are the roles of governments and big companies in setting open standards? All these questions and a few more are discussed in this excellent book.

The book contains four parts. The first, “The Politics of Interoperability,” discusses governments as a player in forming standards. There are many things a government can do to influence the process. For example, it can request that all government procurements conform to a particular open standard. The second part, “Standards, Innovation, and Development Economics,” describes how open standards can help in innovation, world trade, the development of a country, and so on. The third part, “Standards-Based Intellectual Property Debates,” elaborates on whether copyright and patent protection is in conflict with open standards. The last part, “Interoperability and Openness,” focuses on information and communication technology (ICT) and software in which interoperability is very important.

For those who want to understand who the stakeholders are and the processes involved in open standards, this is a very good book. The contributing authors are all very distinguished; the contents are very substantial. The only minor style difference between chapters is that some use notes and some use references.

To summarize, this book is enjoyable to read and will enhance your knowledge of the topic.