Proposal: Update to Indicator 8 of the DPG Standard- Adherence to Standards & Best Practices

[AmreenTaneja]

Context

Discussions regarding the refinement of Indicator 8 of the DPG Standard - “Adherence to Standards and Best Practices” have been continuing through earlier GitHub issues and community threads (DPGAlliance/dpg-community#25).
After careful assessment and consideration within the DPG Standard Council, we are putting forward a formal proposal for public comment.

Proposed Update:

Going forward, a consolidated list of standards and best practices, referenced under Indicator 8, will be created and maintained for applicants to select from, replacing the current free-text input option as the preferred way of declaring the use of standards and best practices. This will be operationalized using a simple, implementation-driven principle:

A standard or best practice will be included on the Indicator 8 reference lists only if it is already in use by at least one Digital Public Good.

This is based on the understanding that the practical value of any standard lies in its real-world implementation. The updated lists are meant to serve as a helpful reference for applicants, reflecting what other DPGs are actually using, to support their solutions. For the initial lists, the following steps will be taken:

1. Classify all standards and best practices currently declared by DPGs, and sort them by frequency of use.
2. Remove standards or practices that are already addressed in other indicators of the DPG Standard, such as privacy, licensing, and documentation.
3. Eliminate ambiguous or highly unspecific standards or practices.
4. Merge or consolidate equal or similar standards and practices that were listed under different names or using acronyms.
5. Based on research, supplement and consolidate categories into the selected standards and practices.

What This Means for DPG Applicants

• DPGs will continue to be able to declare which open standards or best practices their solution uses in a more structured way, and list additional ones, even if those are not currently on the reference list.
• Over time, as more DPGs share the use of new standards and practices, we will continue to expand and evolve the lists.
• The Indicator 8 lists will remain a live resource, which will allow contributions that meet the underlying principle stated above.

How New Standards Can Be Added

Once the initial lists are published, if a community member or a DPG team wishes to highlight a standard or best practice that is already in use but not yet listed:

1. Create a Pull Request to this repository.
2. In the PR, include

• The name of the open standard / best practice
• The DPG/DPGs using it
• Proof or citation showing its implementation

3. The Council and maintainers will review and update the list accordingly.

This keeps the process open, transparent and evidence-based.

Public Comment Period:

We are opening this proposal for public comment for 3 weeks.
During this period, we invite:

• Feedback on the new inclusion criteria
• Suggestions for clarity or process improvements
• Inputs from DPG teams, contributors, and community members

At the end of this comment window, the DPG Standard Council will review all inputs and publish a final decision.

Next Steps After Adoption

If the update is approved:

• The finalized Indicator 8 reference lists will be published in this repository for open review.
• The lists will also be added to the DPG Standard wiki for easier visibility and ongoing updates.

[StephenAbbott]

@AmreenTaneja Happy new year and thank you for sharing this proposed update, Amreen.

I am happy to see and support the proposed changes.

I am the former product owner of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS), developed by Open Ownership and Open Data Services. It is the world's leading open standard for beneficial ownership information and already in use by multiple national governments.

BODS has been submitted for consideration by the DPG Alliance and ticks all the boxes apart from the fact that open standards were not being accepted as DPGs when the application was submitted.

In terms of whether BODS is used by at least 1 DPG, this may be an edge case. The Open Contracting Data Standard is linked with BODS and I can see that the Open Contracting Portal is a DPG.

There is also a close partnership between the BODS team and the GLEIF team who are behind the LEI which is a DPG. You can see this via our shared GODIN initiative (which is supported by Wikidata, another DPG), LEI to BODS mapping and the publication of all of GLEIF's LEI data in BODS format.

However I will be interested to follow the steps laid out above once this update is approved and to receive feedback from the DPG team.

[kjetilk]

I think I'd rather have a more extensive discussion of standards practice, but I don't know if it is in scope.

The key problem is that standards is a nexus of commonswashing practices, and that the DPGA could be in the position to combat commonswashing, but it is difficult to not be helping commonswashing if the bar isn't pretty high and detailed.

I think the criterion addresses an important aspect, that at least one DPG has to use it. One key aspect of standards is that it must be possible to implement by open source projects. A commonswashing practice is to write a standard so that only your proprietary product can implement it, but still call it open to deceive. So, this requirement is good that in that at least, it proves that the standard has at least been partly implemented as open source, this is important.

However, it does not mean that all of the requirements have been implemented, and so, there could be traps in there. One way to combat such traps is to require that there exists a test suite that can verify all requirements, and that anyone can run the test suite so that it can be verified that there exists several interoperable implementations (proprietary or otherwise). And you need tech to produce a test coverage report. However, such test suites barely exist as of now, so that's a very high bar to meet...

There could be a tiered approach where the "Gold Standard" is to have the test suite with full coverage report, while the "Bronze Standard" is to accept one of the existing Open Standard definitions.

I believe there is a community out there who would be interested in helping, as this is important to many in the community.

In conclusion, I believe the direction is good, but I'm not quite confident it is sufficient to help combat common commonswashing practices.

[AmreenTaneja]

Thank you for your input @StephenAbbott Once these changes are rolled out, the specifics of the application can be discussed with the DPGA Review team, who will be happy to guide you through the assessment criteria. @ricardomiron @BolajiAyodeji

[AmreenTaneja]

Thank you for your input @kjetilk We’ll take your suggestions back to the DPG Standards Council for further discussion and will reach out directly if any additional clarification is needed. If everything looks good, we’ll proceed with rolling out this change first and can then explore options to further fine-tune the indicator.

[kjetilk]

FWIW, my suggestions for a minimal bar for standards is this:

• The standard must be maintained by a not-for-profit organization.
• Participation in the standards development process is open to all
  interested parties.
• Decision-making processes are documented.
• The standard, drafts and supporting material must be possible to
  copy, distribute and use at no cost.
• The standard must be possible to implement and the implementations
  must be possible to use without paying royalty fees.
• There are at least two interoperable and independent implementations
  of the standard, out of one must be Open Source.

And then, you new criterion for inclusion is then that the last one is a DPG, which is sound.