Better organizations plan and account for tools and data, which only happens when the technology, systems and processes are transparent.

We look at the bigger picture for technology, what it really takes to enable large systems made up of small parts to connect in better ways. Building one-off tools that act as silos unto themselves does not advance us. In fact, we’ve seen time and again how technologies built in closed quarters simply disappear when the need for the services they provide outgrows the capacity of the teams to maintain the tools. Meanwhile, customers with proprietary formats of data are left to fend for themselves, migrate to new tools… and chances are such people will repeat this dysfunctional cycle again… and again.

This is one reason why we advocate for open source. One cannot truly own software (or data) unless they have the means (and the rights) to make it better and use such things as they need to. Open source provides the transparency into the technologies we rely on so together we can build trust and trusted practices around them.

We believe in a fair and competitive marketplace — and such competition should be fierce around design approaches that differentiate products — not around basic functionality that one expects from similar products and services. For that, we firmly advocate for standardization.

With the combination of open source and standardization, especially in matters of learning, education and competency, open source makes sure that there are always options to access and transport data in an increasingly data-rich workplace… and standardization ensures that no matter what systems you install as part of the work environment, they’ll work together. That saves organizations money and time and it helps to ensure that the investments individuals place in technology to store and make sense of their information