I don't know where you did get that impression but JPEG XL has written specifications which is exactly the standard.
https://jpeg.org/jpegxl/documentation.html
All we have is a whitepaper.
[1] Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32885509
Besides from that technicality though, do you really think that publicly available standards would have changed the situation? I don't think so---Chrome (and to be clear, most other browsers) has supported tons of closed standards anyway.
No. A closed standard is not a standard.
> Besides from that technicality though, do you really think that publicly available standards would have changed the situation? I don't think so---Chrome (and to be clear, most other browsers) has supported tons of closed standards anyway.
I think it might have helped, yes.
Please elaborate.
But I wouldn't say it's a "closed" standard. Not any more closed than, say, the C++ standard or the Unicode standard. What makes a standard open is not the price the publisher puts on the copies, imo, but how transparent and open the process is to design and change the standard, and whether it is possible or not to implement and use the standard for free or not. In that regard, I would consider JPEG XL just as open a standard as C++ or Unicode.
The HEVC spec is publicly available without paywall, but you cannot freely implement and use this standard since it's a patent encumbered, very non-royalty-free codec. I consider it a closed standard for that reason, and the spec being available for free (but not implementable without paying royalties) does not make much of a difference imo.
Open Standard does not mean Free Standard. As much as I would want the Final Spec 1.0 to be freely available.
The original JPEG standard is an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 10918) with payed access.
MP3 is also an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 13818-3). Perhaps not as relevant today but was once used by basically everyone.
Access to the standard is only relevant to the implementer. It's of no consequence to users of a piece of software.
https://www.iso.org/standard/77977.html
Anyone interested in doing an independent implementation can use this specification (or a recent draft of the upcoming 2nd edition). Alternatively, you can look at the source code of one of the three JPEG XL implementations currently available: libjxl, J40, and jxlatte. These are all open-source, and in a way that's an executable specification.
Is it simply just one that cost money to access?
If I made a language standard on my own it would not be a open standard from quite a few orgs point of view. It is annoying that you are just throwing around vague use of words without giving a clear definition.
What is a closed standard?
Also the world run on those documents with little to no relevance, no matter how much people dislike how you need to pay to view them. It is a sad state of affairs.
If you actually wanted to make changes you would lobby for it, you are just saying they don't exist which is of little help to change the status quo.