Editing Interoperability (section)

===Open standards===
{{Main|Open standard}}
Open standards rely on a broadly consultative and inclusive group including representatives from vendors, academics and others holding a stake in the development that discusses and debate the technical and economic merits, demerits and feasibility of a proposed common protocol. After the doubts and reservations of all members are addressed, the resulting common document is endorsed as a ''common standard''. This document may be subsequently released to the public, and henceforth becomes an ''open standard''. It is usually published and is available freely or at a nominal cost to any and all comers, with ''no further encumbrances''. Various vendors and individuals (even those who were not part of the original group) can use the standards document to make products that implement the common protocol defined in the standard and are thus ''interoperable by design'', with no specific liability or advantage for customers for choosing one product over another on the basis of standardized features. The vendors' products compete on the quality of their implementation, user interface, ease of use, performance, price, and a host of other factors, while keeping the customer's data intact and transferable even if he chooses to switch to another competing product for business reasons.