This EU standardization white paper is a weak attempt to focus on important issues. What is an ICT standard? Is a cell phone battery standard an ICT standard? Is a computer environmental disposal standard an ICT standard? Are the standards for telephone electronic components ICT standards? In fairness I do recognize this paper discusses standards that apply to the compatibility of computer or communications systems or equipment, less confusingly termed “compatibility” standards. The confused title is only preamble. Considering that the EU does not even have a reasonable (or widely accepted) definition of a technical standard proposing goals for a “quality” standard or “open” standard is meaningless.
Standardization once (early 20th Century) was a process for achieving greater efficiency. When interfaces are programmable and software loads are trivial (the early 21st Century) standardization becomes a process for minimizing risk. Risk may be minimized by multi-mode operation. Two different solution to an interface – why argue? Allow both. Or even more. IPR claimed on a successful interface delivered in high volume? Add a mode that avoids the IPR. Multi-mode operation of interfaces reduces real risks while insignificantly reducing efficiency.
Seven policy goals are noted as desired (shown in italics) At least three of these goals may be undesirable
• Drive innovation and competitiveness by adapting ICT standardisation policy to market and policy developments;
Government direction has a long history of driving innovation away. Competitiveness is a cost issue. If more competitiveness is desired reduce costs by following the standardization output rather than leading it. Since standardization is part of an evolutionary process, the EU desire for some level of command and control is counterproductive.
• Provide industry including SMEs, with high-quality ICT standards in a timely manner to ensure competitiveness in the global market while responding to societal expectations;
How will government do this? By paying experts from industry, who would be paid by commercial organizations if the standardization task they are employed on was deemed commercially desirable. In the world of R&D, standardization is basically a development issue not a research issue. The EU would (IMHO) better serve its taxpayers by funding R (where industry activity is often lagging) rather than D, where industry activity is a reliable pointer to new markets. This point is actually suggested in the paper.
• Enhance the position of European ICT standardisation at the global level;
What is the value of regional standardization in an interconnected world? When the world was less connected it was important for the EU nations to gather their standardization efforts together. Now regional standardization is the problem, not the solution. One of the effects of regional standardization is to have the Chinese create their own standards rather than use existing “global” standards (with considerable EU input) in which the Chinese are disadvantaged.
There are standardization areas where government action is important, such as:
• Supporting the broad need for technical standards (which the EU does well),
• Requiring that standards which impact upon health, safety, security and pornography have appropriate functionality, and
• Getting out of the way the rest of the time (which the US does well).
Beyond these areas of obvious government interest there are other areas that would benefit from positive governmental action:
Addressing the rising cost of patents, and pools of patents, that apply to compatible interfaces. FRAND and RAND are not sufficient as they support reciprocal IPR advantage – where one organization accepts another organization’s IP in a standard so long as the reciprocal arrangement also occurs. The net effect of this is to increase the cost of IPR in standards with little or no advantage to the users who must pay for such mutual back scratching.
Supporting a broad understanding of openness and assisting all standardization organizations to develop means to measure and report their level of openness. (There is work in progress on this in the EU)
Transparency (of the standardization process, of patent rights and contractual terms applied to standards, and applied to the openness of standards), which includes: access to work-in-progress documentation as well as low cost access to completed standards. The IETF proved this is practical and desirable now it needs to be required. Allowing the IPR costs in a public standard to be hidden is a trap for users. Without the users’ knowledge of these costs there is no cap on how much the IPR costs may be. Three to five percent was considered a reasonable cap in similarity standards. What is a reasonable cap on the IP costs in compatibility standards?
This white paper does not offer helpful direction on these issues.
The goals identified in this EU standardization policy white paper are based on the industrial society that peaked in the early 20th Century. They do not even address the needs (compatibility) of the information age (which peaked before 2000). And they are far from the standardization needs of the post-information society which is emerging.
See “The Entrepreneur and Standards” for more details on the historical settings of standardization.
