Connectivity Standards Alliance

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Connectivity Standards Alliance
CSA Logo.svg
Formation2002; 20 years ago (2002)
HeadquartersDavis, California, USA
Websitecsa-iot.org

The Connectivity Standards Alliance, formerly the Zigbee Alliance, is a group of companies that maintain and publish the Zigbee standard and the soon to be Matter standard.[1] The name Zigbee is a registered trademark of this group, and is not a single technical standard. The organization publishes application profiles that allow multiple OEM vendors to create interoperable products. The relationship between IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee[2] is similar to that between IEEE 802.11 and the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Over the years, the Alliance's membership has grown to over 500 companies, including the likes of Comcast, Ikea, Legrand, Samsung SmartThings, and Amazon.[3] The Zigbee Alliance has three levels of membership: adopter, participant, and promoter.[3] The adopter members are allowed access to completed Zigbee specifications and standards, and the participant members have voting rights, play a role in Zigbee development, and have early access to specifications and standards for product development.

The requirements for membership in the Zigbee Alliance cause problems for free-software developers because the annual fee conflicts with the GNU General Public Licence.[4] The requirements for developers to join the Zigbee Alliance also conflict with most other free-software licenses.[5] The Zigbee Alliance board of directors has been asked to make their license compatible with GPL, but refused.[6] Bluetooth has GPL-licensed implementations.[7]

As of May 11, 2021, the Zigbee Alliance has been rebranded to Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA).[8]

References[]

  1. ^ "About the ZigBee Alliance". ZigBee.org. ZigBee Alliance. Archived from the original on September 20, 2012. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  2. ^ "Wireless Sensor Networks Research Group". Sensor Networks. November 17, 2008. Archived from the original on 2012-04-19. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  3. ^ a b "Our Members". ZigBee.org. Zigbee Alliance. August 13, 2014. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  4. ^ "FAQ for BEN WPAN". en.Qi-Hardware.com. Qi Hardware. "Innovation" section. ZigBee is only royalty-free if not used for commercial purposes
  5. ^ "Zigbee, Linux, and the GPL". Freak Labs. Archived from the original on February 16, 2010. Retrieved June 14, 2009.
  6. ^ McCarthy, Kieren (May 21, 2015). "The Internet of Things becomes the Game of Thrones in standards war". The Register. Retrieved February 13, 2017.
  7. ^ "Common questions". Bluez - Official Linux Bluetooth protocol stack. BlueZ Project. Retrieved February 13, 2017.
  8. ^ "The Zigbee Alliance Rebrands as Connectivity Standards Alliance". zigbeealliance.org. Retrieved 12 May 2021.

External links[]

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