Open Cloud Principles (OCP) draft available

[Sam Johnston]

A draft of the Open Cloud Principles (OCP) is now available in various open formats from http://www.opencloudinitiative.org/ocp. As you can see the requirements are clear and concise, striking a good balance between the needs of consumers and vendors (remembering that "Open Source" was also intended as a "business friendly" version of Free Software).

Open Cloud Principles

From Open Cloud Initiative (OCI) Wiki

Interoperability (the ability to exchange and use information) is an absolute requirement for unrestricted competition between vendors and unrestricted choice for users.

Users must be able to come (no barriers to entry) and go (no barriers to exit) regardless of who they are (no discrimination) and what systems they use (technological neutrality).

Principles

1. Open APIs: Key functionality must implement Open Standard APIs.
2. Open Formats: User data must be represented in Open Standard formats.
3. Open Data: User data may be licensed in compliance with the Open Knowledge Definition
4. Open Source: System software may be licensed in compliance with the Open Source Definition or placed into the public domain.

Standards

Open Standards must meet the European Interoperability Framework requirements:

1. the costs for the use of the standard are low and are not an obstacle to access to it;
2. the standard has been published;
3. the standard is adopted on the basis of an open decision-making procedure (consensus or majority decision etc);
4. the intellectual property rights to the standard are vested in a not-for-profit organisation, which operates a completely free access policy;
5. there are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.

Open Standards should be made available under a Creative Commons license (excluding NC and ND variants).

RFC 2119 requirement levels are used throughout.