According to 1EdTech, refers to 5 principles for published specifications that are: 1) freely available to all with no implementation restrictions; 2) licensed for free with no restrictions on software implementations; 3) created, endorsed, governed, owned, and maintained by a substantial representation from across the community asked to abide by the standards;  4) governed via transparent neutral processes that provide for equitable participation by members of the community (not controlled by a limited set of market participants); and 5) transparent with respect to intellectual property claims that may hinder market adoption. These principles are useful to edtech suppliers in reducing the cost of many integrations they are required to support, because standards have a cost of implementation to suppliers even if distributed and licensed for free. Many leading suppliers choose to implement open standards because the cost is often returned to them many times over in savings in dealing with their partners.