An Innovative Combination of Standards and Open Source Software

ONF is defining new approaches to both software and standards that go beyond the value each brings independently. By supporting rapid prototyping of new open source solutions while promoting interoperability via standards, we are leading the effort to help reassemble disaggregated components into integrated and complete systems. This combination of agility and interoperability will accelerate the adoption of SDN & NFV and enable the transformation of networks into innovative platforms for service delivery.

Software defined standards need to be approved and published by ONF under one of the following classifications:

Technical Specifications (TS) – ONF Reference Designs and OpenFlow related standards are published as Technical Specifications, and may include protocol definitions, information models, functionality of components and related framework documents. It is this category of Technical Specification that is identified as such because it is a normative publication that has the ONF RAND-Z IPR policy and licensing guiding its further use.

Technical Recommendations (TR) – Includes all standards that define APIs, data models, protocols, information models and similar. Technical Recommendations are ONF normative documents. They are protected by either Apache 2.0 licensing or copyright, and may be freely used if formally cited, not altered, and not commercially sold.

Informational – publications to help further the ONF’s mission and the development and/or the deployment of open networking solutions.  This may include use cases, white papers, solution briefs testing reports and customer case studies. These documents are not normative, are protected by copyright only, and may be freely used if formally cited, not altered, and not commercially sold.

Statement of Policy

At this time, the publication of TSs and the use of the RAND-Z licensing model is reserved for Reference Designs and OpenFlow related work.  Other Software Defined Standards will be published as TRs or as Informational.