Open source and standards: The role of open source in the dialogue between research and standardization

Open Source communities have emerged as increasingly popular structure for the rapid introduction of software standards. The Telecom industry is increasingly based on deployment and operation of software technologies for infrastructure services, not just enterprise support functions. As Open Source communities are increasingly enabling new innovation ecosystems for communications services, they are expected to take on a key role in the process of developing Telecom industry standards. This fundamental transition is being driven by a technology evolution that will raise organizational, legal, and architectural challenges to the Telecommunications industry. While the challenges have to be carefully considered, the business agility and operational efficiency potential of Open Source adoption is expected to mitigate the difficulty of adopting this new model for designing, developing, testing and deploying network solutions.