Vendor Neutrality is the principle that systems, standards and procurement should not favour or depend upon any single supplier’s proprietary technology. It is achieved through open standards, well-defined interfaces and portable data formats that allow components from different vendors to interoperate and be substituted. Vendor neutrality reduces lock-in, preserves bargaining power and protects long-term access to data and capabilities.
Overview
- Open Standards provides the broader context within which Vendor Neutrality sits.
- Vendor Neutrality is treated here as a member of the standards domain at established maturity.
- It is referenced across the knowledge graph by classes that depend on or compose it, making it a central node that warranted an explicit definition.
Key aspects
- It requires Open Standards.
- It requires Interoperability.
Mechanisms
- Vendor Neutrality operates by combining its constituent parts into a coherent capability that other classes can rely upon.
- Its guarantees and behaviours are realised through the dependencies and standards captured in the relations below.
Applications
- Enables and supports Interoperability.
- Enables and supports Open Source.
- Enables and supports Open Data.