Why Users Need Standards

Roy Schestowitz has written a superb article explaining the role which open standards play in the software marketplace. In particular he examines the recent terms of punishment handed down to the Microsoft Corporation by the European Commission for being found guilty of criminally abusing their monopoly in the European Union.

He laments - as does the whole open source community - the fact that the Commission required that Microsoft offer "interoperability" with other software products rather than requiring that their software comply with "open standards". The latter would be much easier to test, and much more valuable to the entire marketplace. Microsoft, even after failing to win its anti-trust appeal, is still "influential" enough to determine its own punishment, which effectively reinforces - as Roy effectively explains - its monopoly hold on the EU's software market.