Software markets tend towards for reasons that are technical before they are commercial.
A file , once widely used, makes every competing product worse by default.
A document that opens imperfectly in a rival programme is a reason not to switch.
accumulate quietly: stored data, trained staff, small scripts that somebody wrote years ago.
None of this requires bad behaviour by the supplier.
Open standards address the problem at its source rather than at its symptom.
If the is public and fully documented, a competitor can implement it completely.
Public is the most effective instrument, because a government is a customer nobody ignores.
A rule requiring open s for public documents changes what suppliers build.
Several administrations adopted such rules and then quietly retreated.
The retreat was usually about existing files rather than about principle.
duties go one step further and require a service to work with others.
Messaging is the clearest current case, since a network's value depends on who else is on it.
Opening a network reduces the advantage of being large, which is precisely the point and precisely the .
Security objections are raised in every such debate and are occasionally genuine.