Beyond 'open standard'

[simo]

On Wed, 2006-07-19 at 21:18 +0300, Yavor Doganov wrote:
> What's wrong with "free standard"?  I always use this term and people
> seem to understand clearly what it means.

I strongly agree with this. A standard is free if it is not patent
uncumbered.
There is no chance of making the mistake between free as in freedom and
free as in gratis, as I see no way you can ask money for the
implementation of the standard without patents anyway.
At most you can use copyright to protect the original specification, but
nobody can prevent you to write another description of the standard and
distribute it for free or for a fee.

Free standard convey the very notion of being free to implement such
standard. I don't see any better wording than Free Standard. Nobody is
going to think they cannot charge you money for the book that describes
it, there's no chance of misunderstanding that unless you want to do it
on purpose..

And no, I don't think it is acceptable that someone can't write it's own
version of the specification if he wants to nor I find it acceptable
that to implement such standard you are required to buy the official
specification if you don't want to.

Simo.