Oliver Bell’s Weblog

A few days ago Jerry Fishenden added a post to his site that talks through how he thinks about Interoperability.

I’ve worked with Jerry on and off for the last ten years or so and I know that a lot of what he has written in this entry is based upon the many discussions and projects that he has been involved in over this time. (and before!)

From his article;

But when the debate moves onto the related subject of “standards”, the discussion becomes more opaque. After all, standards alone do not equal interoperability. It’s looking at the problem from the wrong end - standards are one of several means to an end, not an end in themselves. The equation I always hold in the back of my mind runs along the lines of:

_{interoperability = standards (de facto, de jure) + licensing + partnerships + the real world + (x)}

This is a complex area, unique in that it tends to be complex not because of the technology but more often because of the huge array of ways that people define and use the word “Interoperability”.

The word can carry different meanings depending upon which part of the problem you are most closely connected to or which audience problem you’re trying to solve. For example, interoperability needs for the consumer can be very different to the interoperability challenges faced in an enterprise data center.

When it comes to raw interoperability between technologies the industry has a pretty good idea around how individual problems can be solved, or in cases where the industry has not got it right then you will often find solutions from small software vendors or independent developers.

It is more frequent that you will find the other components of Jerry’s equation are the ones that consume available cycles when working to solve an issue of interoperability, or in many cases they are the components that just get overlooked.