Protocol
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By which I mean, Does it have an open published specification that anyone can freely use? And can any software that implements the specification interoperate with any other such software?
The Internet and the World Wide Web that runs on the Internet are exemplars of protocols, or actually protocol stacks.
Protocol creation
The creation of protocol is a political act and requires a lot of people coming to agreement, and then those agreements get baked into a spec, and then the spec gets difficult to change without breaking implementations and interoperability.
Why protocolness is important
- Allow peer-to-peer economic networks where pretty much anybody in the world can participate.
- Not everybody in the world will want to use the same software, however wonderful it might be.
- Everybody needs to be able to create software that will work for them, and still be able to internetwork economically with other peers.