Open (Source, Standards, ness)

I've talked about this publicly from time to time, and I think this would be a good forum to get the idea on the table a little more widely.

Open source, open standards, and openness often get confused with each other in conversations about service design and/or requirements gathering.

All of us in IT at Penn State should be, in my opinion, placing interoperability near the top of the list of criteria when designing a new service. Openness.

If the fundamental protocols and formats that a solution uses are based on open standards (not necessarily industry standards - another point of confusion at times), openness is likely to be achieved.

Open source solutions tend to embrace open standards. As a result, most open source solutions lead to openness.

Openness is a must in a diverse environment like a university. Open standards are necessary to achieve openness in such an environment. Open source is one way out of many to get there. If there dogma in any of this, it is openness. Sometimes, open source zealots turn their confidence in an open source solution into dogma and that muddies the waters. Sometimes, the open source skeptical hear that dogma and the cycle of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is fueled with all of the wrong perceptions.

Let's be open in our solutions. We should either be establishing an environment for interoperability or improving the state of interoperability where it doesn't exist. We can't afford to take steps backwards in interoperability. It is expensive in many ways.