summary of Re: Beyond 'open standard'

[Sean DALY]

The term "Open Standard" already has a generally accepted meaning: it's a standard that not's proprietary. But again, taking the MPEG standards as an example, they are quite open ISO standards; 14 years after its adoption, MPEG-1 (ISO/IEC 11172) remains the only audiovisual standard well implemented in every software media player. There is no mystery from the technical standpoint. However, licensing the patent pool for an MPEG standard is another story altogether...

How about "Free and fair standard", which echoes "Free and fair elections"? I fear that "Fair standard" by itself could be easily twisted: "License our IP on fair terms" could well be a message concerning... a proprietary standard.

I think it's a worthy and achievable goal to end patent licensing on other than Free terms; in this vein, "Patent-free standard" may be an effective label. When companies learn how to recoup R&D spend other than by patent licensing, the larger part of the battle will be won I think.

Sean



> Message du 19/07/06 20:55
> De : "Patrick Ohnewein" <patrick.ohnewein at lugbz.org>
> A : "Georg C. F. Greve" <greve at fsfeurope.org>
> Copie à : discussion at fsfeurope.org
> Objet : Re: summary of Re: Beyond 'open standard'
> 
> Am Mittwoch, den 19.07.2006, 19:41 +0200 schrieb Georg C. F. Greve:
> > I see more problems with fair than with free, to be honest.
> > 
> 
> I concord with this.
> 
> Here a vision about a sort of categorizing the standards into 3 levels:
> 
> 1) Free Standard
> 
> Fully documented with at least one Free Software reference
> implementation.
> 
> 2) Open Standard
> 
> Fully documented.
> 
> 3) Proprietary Standards
> 
> Not fully documented and/or covered by patents or other freedom
> restrictions.
> 
> 
> Today everybody is talking about "Open Standard", IBM, Microsoft, etc.
> This results in an awareness about Open Standards in decision makers of
> the PA and the economy.
> 
> It will be difficult to propagate the term of "Free Standard" against
> the PR departments of IBM and Co. pushing the term of "Open Standard".
> 
> Even being it difficult it is worst trying, but maybe it would be wiser
> to try to create an official and widely accepted definition of "Open
> Standard", which matches our views of "Free Standard". This would mean,
> that PR departments of IBM and Co. will work for the propagation of
> "Free Standard".
> 
> Maybe it could be done creating a definition together with the ODF
> Alliance, OASIS and other well known entities.
> 
> I don't know if this is possible, I just hope their is a chance. Can
> someone with more insight give a comment?
> 
> Happy hacking!
> Patrick
> 
> 
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