From Open Standards to Openly Governed: Standards-Setting Organizations as Stewards of Openness amid Platformization and Digital Sovereignty

The public good nature of open geospatial standards, critical for interoperability across data, services, and systems, is facing challenges from increasing platformization and the rise of proprietary location technologies. The paper argues that the governance structures of standards-setting organizations are paramount in determining whether open specifications continue to serve as digital public infrastructure or become conduits for commercial enclosure. This shift necessitates careful consideration of institutional design to preserve public good characteristics.

Why it matters

This trend highlights a critical tension between maintaining open infrastructure for broad societal benefit and the commercial incentives driving proprietary technology development. For any domain reliant on interoperable digital systems, the shift towards proprietary standards risks fragmenting data ecosystems, increasing vendor lock-in, and undermining the foundational principles of public digital infrastructure.

Key insights

• Open geospatial standards are crucial for interoperability of data, services, and systems across diverse platforms.
• The concept of 'openness' extends beyond mere specification properties to include the institutions that create standards and the infrastructures where they operate.
• Standards can function both as digital public goods and as digital public infrastructure, but these roles can diverge under market pressures.
• The governance framework and institutional design of standards-setting organizations significantly influence whether open specifications maintain their public good character.
• There is a noted trend towards proprietary location stacks, APIs, and closed systems within the geospatial coordination landscape, challenging traditional open standards.

Source

arXiv — Computers and Society — https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.01773