standards

In computing, any agreed system or protocol that helps different pieces of software or different computers to work together.

In the fast-moving area of computer technology, standards have sometimes developed haphazardly: market forces brought about de facto standards such as the MS-DOS operating system for PCs, or the 8.8 cm/3.5 in floppy disk. If computers are to communicate over a network, however, standards must be coordinated: the World Wide Web, for example, works because everybody who uses it agrees to follow the same conventions, such as using HTML to build Web documents. Other standards, like SMTP - the procedure for sending e-mail - exist to make cross-platform communication (for example between a Unix machine and a Macintosh) possible. Bodies involved with this process include: the Internet Architecture Board, which lays down basic procedures by promulgating RFCs, the W3 Consortium, which looks after HTML, and the International Standards Organization.