recent DISCUSSION

• A. Rebentisch says:

  For standard professionals the term “proprietary standards” makes only limited sense. The phrase “standards… protected by IPRs” also appears to be jargon with limited pratical relevance for standard development and implementation. Therefore a dichotomy seem neither justified nor complimentary. It is better to speak about patent licensing conditions than terminology. So far RAND, RAND-Z/RF licensing models share the problem that we find no “standardised” method of licensing for the single market. These uncertainties and risks are a concern, recently framed as the “legal interoperability” aspect. I am curious about MEP Malcolm Harbours perspective who gained years of experience in regulatory matters and standardisation, esp. in the automotive and telecom industries. A traditional and independend mind looks helpful to review or dismiss fancy ideas.

  Did not Microsoft once promote “shared source” code disclosure strategies to satisfy governmental security concerns? On the one hand, code transparency seems a fruitful side effect of “open source” models but it can also be achieved without these “libre” licensing conditions. On the other hand these natural features of the “libre” licensed software services provide these models with a competitive advantage, in particular for public sector users. Probably for these reasons the “shared model” didn’t overtake the “open” one, an indication that the power rests on the procurement side. Or maybe source code disclosure is not as essential for users as the “open” term suggests or the “libre” aspect and the software eco system are what really matters. In any case, standards are usually completely neutral towards these source code licensing aspects of their implementations.
• zoobab says:

  @Niklas

  Maybe use Libre software, as they do in France and South America.
• Helen Disney says:

  Indeed, these topics will all be covered in the debate. As a point of clarification, I am not sure that Microsoft would try to claim ownership of the term ‘open source’, however. But putting that point aside, there are various ways to create standards – both open and proprietary – and it is not clear that consumers would be better served by closing off one of those options. Clearly, consumers want the freedom to use the best products but sometimes innovators also need the protection of intellectual property if they want to be free to invest time and money in developing their ideas before bringing them to market.
• Niklas Lindblom says:

  @zoobab: I take it that what you are saying is that the label “open source” is misleading and that standards instead should be “free”. This is a valuable point in the debate, as step 1 should be to make a clear distinction between what we’re actually talking about. I would not be surprised if this was one of the covered topics at the Stockholm Network forum!
• zoobab says:

  You cannot count copies of a piece of Free Software, since you give in the license the freedom to copy to your neighboor.

  How do you control how many copies your neighboor will do?

  Patents is a direct attack on this freedom, which is one of the 4 freedom behind Free Software.

  Microsoft use the term “open source” on purpose, because they do not care about freedom.