Högskolan i Skövde

The overarching goal in this paper is to investigate organisational engagement with an ICT standard and open source software (OSS) projects that implement the standard, with a specific focus on the multimedia field, which is relevant in light of the wide deployment of standards and different legal challenges in this field. The first part reports on experiences and insights from engagement with standards in the multimedia field and from implementation of such standards in OSS projects. The second part focuses on the case of the ITU-T H.264 standard and the two OSS projects OpenH264 and x264 that implement the standard, and reports on a characterisation of organisations that engage with and control the H.264 standard, and organisations that engage with and control OSS projects implementing the H.264 standard. Further, projects for standardisation and implementation of H.264 are contrasted with respect to mix of contributing organisations, and findings are related to organisational strategies of contributing organisations and previous research.