How Can Open Standards Be Effectively Implemented in Open Source?

Many organisations are currently restricted in their choice of software because of restrictions imposed by existing systems. Challenges include a lack of interoperability and a risk of technological lock-in, which many small companies seek to address by utilising Open Standards and Open Source implementations of such standards when developing and deploying systems. This paper presents an overview of how the industrial research project ORIOS (Open Source software Reference Implementations of Open Standards) seeks to address identified challenges. An overarching goal of the project is to improve understanding within organisations of Open Standards, Open Source Reference Implementations, and the ecosystems around them. This will be done by developing a reference model of necessary and desirable features of an Open Standard, and how Open Standards and their implementations can be utilised by small companies in different usage contexts. An action case study approach will be used as a core strategy for evolving a reference model together with Swedish companies.