Welcome to WikiNörm

Free and Open Standards for all.

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WikiNörm is a Standards Development Organisation, or SDO, created by the Leger Research Foundation (a Non-Profit Organisation from Montréal, Québec, Canada). It promotes free and open standards, principally but not limited to, the field of information security and information technology. It is also used for student training purposes in a Standards education program at the University of Sherbrooke's Faculty of Medicine. The website of the Leger Research Foundation can be found at www.leger.ca.

What are standards ?

A standard can be broadly defined as a set of rules and definitions that have been assembled by a group of stakeholders, an organization or individuals, who have decided to agree that these rules and definition, assembled in a document, specify how to carry out a process or produce a product. This is similar to a law which could be viewed as a standard that is enacted by a government. So basically, a standard can be viewed as a peer-reviewed description of how to build a product or perform a task.

Standards can exist in various forms and come from various sources. Standards can be found in every aspect of our daily lives, from the description of the common electrical outlet to telecommunication protocols used on the Internet. Standards make our lives easier by providing us with products that can be use interchangeably by a group who agrees to adhere to a common standard. Because products can be used interchangeably it becomes possible to mass-produce them and this, generally speaking, results in lower price and greater availability to all.

Open standards

Open Standards are not necessarely free standards. WikiNörms are free standards.

Who can propose a standard ?

On WikiNörm anyone can propose a standard. As well, anyone can participate in standard development activities and submit amendments or suggestions for improvement. However, all participants must adhere to the Code of Ethics.

How does it work ?

Anytime a new standard is proposed, the proposer becomes the Project Editor, the person responsible for the new document. At this point, the standard is considered as a Draft Standard. The new Draft Standard is then published on a Wiki page as a draft and is then discussed on WiKiNörm. Once the Project Editor determines that a document has reached a sufficient level of maturity, he may ask WikiNörm for a WikiNörm Standard Number (WSN) to be assigned to the document. Is then considered to ba at the Published Stage. These are the only two (2) stages of the WiKiNörm Standard Development Process (WSDP).

What about Copyright and licensing ?

All WikiNörm Standards are published under a General Public License, or GPL, known as Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada. They are free and may not be sold under any condition. This means that they may be used, integrated into applications, books or business processes at no cost. All that is asked is that the WikiNörm Standard Number (WSN) be identified and a link be put to this site or to the appropriate page on this site. A product that includes a WikiNörm standard may, in turn, be sold, as long as the WSN is mentionned.

Collaboration with other organisations or Standards Development Organisations

WikiNörm does not collaborate with other SDO's or Government mandated standards organisations and private or public organisations unless they agree to participate in standards activities under a GPL licenceing arrangement and adhere to our Code of Ethics. Individual members may do whatever they want, including participating in other SDO's. However, standards developped under WikiNörm may not be submitted to international standards organisations which sell their standards documents. No SDO material must be published on WikiNörm.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License