Open Standards and Best Practices Improvements

[BolajiAyodeji]

Hi, DPG community!

We are in the process of improving how we collect open standards and best practices information for indicator 8 of the DPG Standard from open-source projects seeking recognition as digital public goods (DPG) and existing DPGs. We currently request DPGs to provide a list of open standards and best practices they adhere to (which could become endless) and have received multiple feedback from DPGs (more recently from our latest data schema proposal to be:

• More explicit about the types of applicable open standards and what makes a standard.
• Clear on what defines a best practice and which should be recognized.

We would like input from YOU as we think through this and welcome discussions to this thread, please. How can we arrive at a recommended list of open standards and best practices for each DPG category that will be reflected in the application process? With inputs from the DPG community, we hope to narrow down our existing list of open standards and best practices recommendations (which are currently segmented by different sectors and application types). Thank you in advance for your contributions!

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Expanding further, according to the Standard for Public Code:

Open standards guarantee access to the knowledge required to use and contribute to the codebase. They enable interoperability between systems and reduce the risk of vendor lock-in. Open standards which are unambiguous allow for independent development of either side of data exchange.

Likewise, ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, reports that “international standards ensure that the products and services you use daily are safe, reliable, and of high quality. They also guide businesses in adopting sustainable and ethical practices, helping to create a future where your purchases not only perform excellently but also safeguard our planet.”

While we agree there should be more meaningful open standards listed for DPGs and not every and any kind of specification, attaining this would be difficult given the diversity of how a standard might be relevant from one solution to the other (based on the purpose, category, etc.). To this effect, we are considering a recommended list with:

• The MOST relevant open standards for each DPG category (software, data, AI systems, and content collections) that focus on a specific scope (interoperability, etc.).
• The MOST relevant best practices for each DPG category that focus on specific scopes (e.g., those that make open software deployable using frameworks like the Digital Square Shelf Readiness, open AI systems more responsibly usable, etc.).

Note

Here’s a list of all open standards (covering different categories like internationalization, accessibility, security, data exchange, authentication, authorization, multimedia, etc.) and best practices current DPGs have reported to adhere to, sorted by the most used, with a breakdown of usage and representation from each DPG category.

Quick Breakdown (All Open Standards)

Kindly click the image to view the full list.

Quick Breakdown (All Best Practices)

Kindly click the image to view the full list.

[sleidig]

I am not sure about the value to list absolute basics explicitly, like HTML, CSS or JPEG. These seem to be more of an internal implementation detail of a DPG. Other standards like OAuth seem super relevant however, because they play a role how systems can be integrated with other solutions and existing ecosystems.
This aspect is slightly hard to define but I for standards I would focus on those that play a role in interfacing to the world outside of the DPG itself.

[BolajiAyodeji]

Thanks for sharing your inputs @sleidig! We're processing all of them and look forward to introducing some improvements in the coming year.

[mgifford]

I would actually reframe "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0/2.1" to just point to the "Latest W3C WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines recommendation"

Right now that is WCAG 2.2. That's ahead of most government legislation, but that legislation is generally for deployed user interfaces, where as these best practices are for what standards should be aiming for.

To paraphrase Gretzky You have to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

[mgifford]

Also worth adding the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) https://w3c.github.io/sustainableweb-wsg/

There is also the Green Software Foundation's https://github.com/Green-Software-Foundation/standards-wg