Open Standards

An open standard refers to a technology that has been approved by a committee. This can include but is not limited to specifications, the drafting process, and the ultimate ownership rights of the standard. There are many interpretations of the meaning of open standard and can refer to patent licensing and fees. In interactive voice response, the term open standard is commonly thought to refer to the VoiceXML standards approved and maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Open standards can refer to programming languages (such as VoiceXML), protocols, file formats, hardware, and systems (system architecture).