"Insanity is doing the same things over and over while expecting different results," said Albert Einstein. Paraphrased, if you always do what you have always done, expect to get what you have always got.

Many would say that this thinking reflects the state of EDA-tool interoperability today. Reportedly, customers spend $7 billion to $9 billion a year helping EDA tools work together. For every dollar spent on tools, however, an additional $3 to $5 is spent integrating them.

Intuitively, then, the staggering resources necessary for companies to function in the interoperability arena should provide more than enough impetus to find some way to reduce the costs. But we are creatures of habit and many of us prefer the comfort of "we've always done it this way," hoping that standards committees will be sufficient to resolve the problems.

New approaches require new definitions to describe the intent of the ideas. Of the current breed of interoperability phrases, open draws the most attention. In the past, open was limited to mean "given to a committee." Now, open means "available to everyone." Geoffrey Moore, high-tech market guru, says, "The word open has become a source of confusion in high-tech because vendors in the Unix community have tried to make it the opposite of proprietary. When used in this way open really means committee-controlled." In reality, open has nothing to do with proprietary, but should pertain to the ability of everybody to use it.

The concept of control is misunderstood, as well. In actuality, if a standard isn't controlled, it will soon become stagnant or crumble into myriad dialects and implementations, rendering it ineffective. The notion of a community - consisting of many people with vested interests - is becoming widely accepted. There are variations on this theme, but when large numbers of people develop and adopt a standard, it needn't be technically elaborate to be highly effective. The key here is that the community wants the standard to succeed.

Traditional formal standards organizations are experienced in consensus-based processes. Membership is open to all, and everyone gets an equal say. Some members sincerely want the standard to succeed and some, unfortunately, don't.

Closed proprietary standards, owned by a single company, are available only to that company's customers. They are fast to evolve and well supported. Other vendors are not allowed to use them, thus reducing tool interoperability.

Licensing by a standards company is a way to transfer closed standards into the public domain.

A standards company obtains legal rights and funding from the owner to create a standard through licensing - usually with fees, and generally to all comers. With limited resources and expertise, the licensor may struggle, however, to bring out a standard quickly and provide long-term support.

Open proprietary standards ensure immediate access by everyone to well-established, well-maintained standards (for example, Synopsys' TAP-in program).

Open source and community source licensing are gaining in popularity. A community reviews and enhances the standard with any changes controlled by a single person or company. A high-quality, well-supported standard often emerges quickly. One popular example is Linux, currently controlled by Linus Torvald.

Open community licensing gathers enhancements from a community that wants the standard to succeed. As with Open SystemC, a steering group manages the process, incorporating changes and redistributing those revisions to the user community in timely releases.

The last three approaches offer the most promising prospects because they best incorporate the spirit of the word open as defined to mean "open to everyone" - and because their perspectives promote the benefits of interoperability.

Indeed, Einstein also said, "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.

It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."