Textbooks

• Greenstein, S. — How the Internet Became Commercial (2015). How internet protocols emerged, were standardized, and shaped competition.
• Russell, A. L. — Open Standards and the Digital Age (2014). History of standards-making from telegraphs to the web.
• Brunsson, N. & Jacobsson, B. — A World of Standards (2000). How standards coordinate action across organizations and nations.
• Simcoe, T. — "Standard Setting Committees" (2012, in Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Networks). Economics of committee-based standard setting.

Tutorials & Courses

• IETF RFC Process — How internet standards actually get made.
• W3C Standards Track — Web standards development process.

Key Concepts

• Interoperability — the ability of systems to exchange and use information without special arrangement.
• Rough consensus and running code — the IETF's decision-making philosophy.
• Standards wars — competition between incompatible standards (e.g. VHS vs Betamax, USB-C vs Lightning).
• Network effects — how protocol adoption creates self-reinforcing value.