The Standards (software) reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Standards (software)

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Software standards enable software to interoperate. Many things are (somewhat) arbitrary, so the important thing is that everyone agree on what they are.

Sometimes software standards are controlled by private corporations (the Windows GUI interface is owned by Microsoft). Sometimes software standards are controlled by open, public, or non-profit organizations (the Secure Shell 2 protocol is 'owned' by the IETF).