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    Standards and Specifications at the Linux Foundation

    Supporting specification development and adoption from ideation to international standard.

    Open source-inspired collaboration methods meet the due process of standardization in our unique approach to specification development.

    Projects benefit from having the flexibility and structure to change as their goals are advanced and refined. Start small or start big - collaboration begins in different ways. Right-sized governance models, support programs, tools, and access to expertise are critical for ensuring projects move forward quickly and correctly. Projects can choose from multiple IPR and funding modes, and optionally take advantage of the Linux Foundation’s best-in-class services. 

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    Joint Development Foundation

    For projects who want to set up a traditional standards development activity, JDF provides the legal umbrella and widely-accepted document templates to get work underway quickly and efficiently. JDF Project Series have the option to advance work for international acceptance through our ISO/IEC JTC1 PAS submitter status.

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    Community Specification

    Community Specification provides the licenses, git-friendly development workflows, and best practices guidelines for projects who want to develop specifications in the same place they develop reference implementations, documentation, test suites and more. Community Specification projects scale from small group problem-solving to multi-vendor collaborations.

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    WEBINAR

    Writing a Formal IT Specification

    Join us for a presentation that outlines a number of considerations involved when creating a formal IT specification, in general, and for software, in particular, such as a programming language or library.

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    RESEARCH

    2023 State of Open Standards

    Standards are a part of the fabric of our technical systems and have important influence over decision-making and innovation. To better understand how these standards come to be, we set out to research the practices currently used to develop and adopt standards in the information and computing technology sector.

    Read the Report
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    WEBINAR

    Getting Started with Community Spec: The Lightweight, Open Source Standardization Path

    View the recording to learn how to leverage Community Specification for your next project.

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    Explore Standards and Specifications Projects

    We host over 200 active specification and standards projects. We specialize in “open” specifications and standards that encourage collaboration among diverse groups of stakeholders.

    Our communities are building standards and specification across technology horizontals and industry verticals. See our full list of projects here.

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    Fill out the form below to subscribe for more news from our standards and specifications projects.

    To request more information about starting a project or other questions, please email admin@jointdevelopment.org.

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