Digitization of information and the Internet have profoundly expanded the capacity for openness. This report details the benefits of openness in three areas--open standards, open-source software, and open innovation--and examines the major issues in the debate over whether openness should be encouraged or not. The report explains each of these three kinds of openness, examines the impact of openness and gauges its importance, details the public policy issues involved with each, and provides policy recommendations for dealing with these issues. (Contains 166 endnotes.) [This report was produced by the Digital Connections Council of the Committee for Economic Development.]