What is the problem? Is this actually a “problem” or a matter of differing goals? What is the lesson? Is it possible that the real problem is the market distortion that could occur when advocates from one side promote government intervention to their advantage (and to the disadvantage of other development and distribution models)? Government policy makers contemplating to alter rules affecting standards setting must exercise extreme caution.
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Reflections on the nature of the problem for the economy caused by the potential tension between standards with IPRs and OSS

This article is co-authored by Anne Layne-Farrar and Daniel Garcia-Swartz (bio Here)

As fellow commenter Stacy Baird notes in his contribution to today’s discussion, all open source licenses are not created equal – hard line licenses, like the GPL, place more restrictions on users and thus create tensions with RAND/FRAND that don’t otherwise exist. Indeed, open source and IPR protected software frequently coexist quite peaceably.
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Both open standards and open source are related but evolving. Given recent events, we could even say that Open source is maturing. Today, rather than considering the dichotomy between open source and proprietary software; we are now evaluating specific open source licenses, how they work with various business goals and how they will play out in the future.

In many ways, our forum topic this month addresses that issue. Stacy says: The answer lies in licenses: not the patent licenses, but certain open source software licenses. James says: Demands for royalties are becoming rarer, in our own domain.
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In February, 24 of the world’s largest telecoms announced the formation of an alliance – the Wholesale Applications Community – to provided a unified and open platform for the rapidly growing – both in magnitude and fragmentation – mobile application market. The stated aim to enable developers to “deploy a single application across multiple devices (through the use of standard technologies) and across multiple operators”, which will lower costs and improve both the quality and quantity of mobile applications available to consumers.

The alliance – which boasts a customer base of more than 3 billion people though members such as Vodafone, AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Orange, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – will work independently of the GSMA to create a platform and distribute mobile and internet apps, although the GSMA is a supportive and active participant. In a statement, Rob Conway of the GSMA said that the WAC “…will build a new, open ecosystem to spur the creation of applications that can be used regardless of device, operating system or operator”.

While proudly claiming lofty ambitions of openness and interoperability, it is clear that the alliance is a direct move by telecoms against Apple’s App store which has come to dominate the mobile software application market. The App store was launched roughly 2 years ago and has an estimated 99% market share. As of June 2010, there are over 225 000 applications available, over 5 billion total downloads have been recorded and over US$1.3 billion in revenue has been generated for both Apple and 3rd party developers (with a 30%/70% split). Comparatively, the second largest distribution platform, the Android market, has just 80 000 applications.

Whether the initiative is based upon a need for cross-platform compatibility or a desire for a slice of Apple’s significant pie, it seems destined to failure for a number of reasons:

Firstly, vertical integration, while fragmenting the market, is in many ways the foundation for its success. By providing a localized standard and a single, unified product line, the App store guarantees applications which are streamlined and optimized for the iPhone.

The Android market on the other hand suffer from significant fragmentation within the platform, due to the vast difference across devices running the same OS. Similarly the WAC covers a myriad of different devices, user interfaces, display resolutions, which will surely dilute the projects implantation.

Secondly, the initiative is in many ways behind the curve as the continued move towards web based applications, a platform accessible from all modern mobile handsets, will ultimately render the WAC obsolete. For instance, Google offers mobile optimized web applications for Gmail, Google Reader, etc rather than native iPhone applications in the App Store. Furthermore, HTML5 promises to make the Web ever more integrated and mobile friendly.

Most importantly however is that WAC, a unified giant with 25+ company voices, will be at great risk of being out maneuvered by the single and unified visions/voices of Apple, Google, or any other platform dedicated distribution channel.

SYNOPSIS

There is a curious paradox which we are seeing increasingly. We see closed systems built on open standards and open source. I illustrate the phenomenon giving three instances below (Apple and Facetime, Open source and the Cloud and SPDY – the proposed new protocol from Google to replace HTTP). I seek comments on these.
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The proposed withdrawal of Google from China has gotten a lot of coverage lately. The issue indicates an extreme example of government involvement in ICT. Here are some ‘between the headlines’ insights from a standards perspective:
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Recently, Google posted a much publicised memo called the Meaning of Open in which Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management attempted to define Open. Attempting to define ‘Open’ is a complex task with many contradictions, and it is good that Jonathan has attempted this.
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