Standards

Need for standards to provide:

Platform and application independence
Avoidance of patented technologies
Flexibility and architectural integrity
Long-term access to data

Ideally look at standards first, then find applications which support the standards. However it can be difficult to achieve this ideal!

Before the Web

Access to resources typically required use of software vendor’s software – which was only available on limited no. of platforms. Often the software would be licensed.

The goal of the Web was to provide universal access to resources. Who could argue with this goal?

Standards