Today, the sources of "standards", broadly construed, constitute a wide spectrum indeed: from the market-power derived, vendor-imposed user environment that is MS Windows and Windows compliant applications, to international bodies such as ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) which promulgate a broad array of standards through a broad, participatory process.
To the end-user (as compared to a vendor competing with other vendors), the source of a standard is of less concern than the utility of the standard offered (or even imposed). To some end-users, the quality of the standard is in fact secondary to the requirement that a standard, any standard, exist for ease of learning and using applications software (MS Windows again is the best example).
