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The fight over what this goes back ages and is intensely political, given the sums of money involved. Internet, open standards. GSM, captive standards. No argument which generated more value, but which was more profitable for the people controlling the technology?

Here is an analysis of why firms like those the BSA represents want to capture computing standards, and how they do it.

According to the OSI, it *is not* an "open standard"
http://opensource.org/osr

According to the EU, it *is not* a "free and open standard"
http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition

You are conflating ISO with "open standard".

"open" is may be interpreted differently. The word generally means "not closed".

The common use of "open" in computing has changed quite a bit in the past two decades.

It doesn't matter how this free / not free debate goes. One is a formal ISO standard, the other is whatever Google decides. How that makes H.264 somehow not open escapes me, but...

Here's my personal view on the issue. Abstract words without a proper definition mean nothing. What I find essential from a video format for the web is to be a "Free and Open Standard" based on this definition (main points: vendor neutral, freely available, no-patents). Ideally I would like such a standard to be published by W3C and included in the HTML5 spec (which currently does not specify a video format, so the "video" tag is essentially useless).

H.264 is clearly not a free and open standard. WebM is clearly not one either. Theora is "more or less" free and open based on this analysis.

Now, if the question is a preference between H.264 and WebM I would support WebM for 2 reasons. First, the freedom to implement a standard is IMHO far more important that being vendor-neutral. I cannot possibly imagine a Web where you need to pay someone to publish content or create a standards-compliant browser. Second, WebM has some realistic chances of becoming vendor-neutral if Google submits it to a standards organization. On the other hand H.264 has close to 0 chance of becoming patent-free.

ISO (among other organizations) creates international standards, but not all standards are open. If you're adding the adjective "open" to the noun "standard", then presumably the adjective modifies the noun in some way. Yes, we then get to argue about what the term "open" means when attached to the term "standard", but clearly it can't just mean "it's a standard", or we wouldn't add the adjective.

If implementers have to make royalty payments, then that excludes many possible suppliers, and thus such a standard cannot possibly be open. That isn't just my idea; the EU, for example, agrees. In "European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services" (Version 1.0, 2004, page 9), the IDABC division of European Union adopted a definition that said that to be an open standard "The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis." The South Africa definition already requires royalty-freeness as well. My paper Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes! analyzes one standard (OpenDocument) to determine if it's an open standard, by using several definitions of open standard. Two of the three most popular definitions of "open standard" of the time, as determined by Google, required royalty-freeness as a necessary condition (Perens' and the EC's). Since Google's pagerank algorithm prefers pages that more people link to, it's reasonable to believe that most people, when they say "open standard", include "royalty-free" as part of their definition. In the case of Europe and South Africa (at least), that definition even has official sanction.

If "most people" use a term in a particular way - especially when that use is formally approved of by many governments - then that's what the term normally means. After all, that's how language works in general; the mapping of sounds to meanings is arbitrary, but we have to agree on the mapping to communicate in a particular language. It's understandable why some companies would like to redefine this term, or at least confuse its meaning. But we don't need to agree with them.

ISO (among other organizations) creates international standards, but not all standards are open. If you're adding the adjective "open" to the noun "standard", then presumably the adjective modifies the noun in some way. Yes, we then get to argue about what the term "open" means when attached to the term "standard", but clearly it can't just mean "it's a standard", or we wouldn't add the adjective.

If implementers have to make royalty payments, then that excludes many possible suppliers, and thus such a standard cannot possibly be open. That isn't just my idea; the EU, for example, agrees. In "European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services" (Version 1.0, 2004, page 9), the IDABC division of European Union adopted a definition that said that to be an open standard "The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis." The South Africa definition already requires royalty-freeness as well. My paper Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? Yes! analyzes one standard (OpenDocument) to determine if it's an open standard, by using several definitions of open standard. Two of the three most popular definitions of "open standard" of the time, as determined by Google, required royalty-freeness as a necessary condition (Perens' and the EC's). Since Google's pagerank algorithm prefers pages that more people link to, it's reasonable to believe that most people, when they say "open standard", include "royalty-free" as part of their definition. In the case of Europe and South Africa (at least), that definition even has official sanction.

If "most people" use a term in a particular way - especially when that use is formally approved of by many governments - then that's what the term normally means. After all, that's how language works in general; the mapping of sounds to meanings is arbitrary, but we have to agree on the mapping to communicate in a particular language. It's understandable why some companies would like to redefine this term, or at least confuse its meaning. But we don't need to agree with them.

It's true that "GPL" is not the same as "open". But a good test for openness of a standard is "can you implement it using the GPL?". In short, if a standard CANNOT be implemented by GPL'ed software, then it CANNOT be an open standard. Why? That's because the GPL is by far the most popular open source software license; nothing else even comes close. And increasingly, major market niches have an open source software implementation as the #1 or #2 implementation. A standard that locks out major implementations cannot possibly be an open standard. The whole point of a software patent is the power to exclude implementation (without paying royalties, etc.), while the whole point of a standard is to allow arbitrary use - they are fundamentally incompatible. Digistan has a more reasonable definition of open standard - and why you would want one.

Mozilla certainly DOES care about end-users and developers. Unlike the others, they have NO reason to do anything OTHER than produce a high-quality browser. (They're not perfect, but at least they have every incentive to try.) The problem is that the U.S. patent system makes it illegal for community-developed software to implement patent-encumbered standards. Mozilla, etc., would be happy to include other codecs if it were legal for them to do so.

At this time, there's only one practical pair of open standards for video and audio: Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. Other audio/video formats, like MP3 and H.*, are not open standards. It would cost almost NOTHING for Microsoft and Apple to implement the Ogg open standards; the only reason they don't include them is because (for various reasons) they explicitly do NOT want open standards to succeed. So the lines are pretty clear here: There's only one practical pair of open standards (Ogg Vorbis and Theora), open standards are good for end-users (eliminating control of others over their data), it's illegal for Mozilla etc. to include the other formats, and the other organizations are working hard to prevent adoption of open standards that would cost nearly nothing for them to implement.

There's a simple solution, anyway. Now that Firefox has Theora and Vorbis built-in, various OSS-friendly sites like Wikipedia should just switch and REQUIRE that to view audio/video, users MUST have support. Then users have a reason to demand support for unencumbered standards... or switch to browsers that implement the unencumbered standards. Codecs have a chicken-and-egg problem, but with enough material and enough users, they become a virtuous cycle. Eventually, the other browsers will need to implement open standards, or they will get killed by their competition. And once there's an open standard in place that is "good enough", it will get harder and harder (over time) to justify using the non-open formats.

The U.S. Department of Defense's "Open Systems Joint Task Force" has some material.

Defining "open standards" is critical. Vendors with an open mouth will say they have an open standard. I'd go look at digistan.org for a more useful definition and justification.

European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services might help, too.

For statistics on why use open source software, see: Why FLOSS? Look at the Numbers!

This is a GOOD thing. DRM is a hideous disaster for end-users. When I buy music, I expect it to STAY bought, and to be able to use it on any device I have. DRM just guarantees that someone can take away my music with no judge and no jury.

But recording this information in the music file is a reasonable compromise. I can still play the music on any device I have. Yes, it's a bad idea to copy it to the world, but I never had the legal right to do that anyway. And yes, it'd be good if it were made clearer that this was happening... but this is NOT a big secret.

This isn't a perfect solution, of course. Even if someone has a copy of music originally bought by someone else, that does NOT mean the original buyer did anything illegal. Computers and networks get broken into all the time. Files can be modified to remove markings, or create bogus markings. Also, I believe people should continue to have the right to resell music, just like they can resell books (the "first sale" doctrine)... regardless of any nonsense spouted by the seller. But in the DRM system, a company operated as judge, jury, and executioner, and the company tended to act capriciously. At least with markings (or non-markings) in the file, a court can examine the evidence. It's not perfect, but it's better, and I can live with it better than the "everything's DRM'ed" world.

Now - where's my Ogg support in iTunes/iPods/iPhones? I'm not demanding that they only use Ogg, but they should be able to support Ogg formats (specifically Ogg Vorbis, Ogg FLAC, Ogg Speex, and Ogg Theora). Neither MP3 nor AAC (.m4a) files are open standards. Wikipedia, for example, provides audio files in Ogg and not in MP3 or AAC.

Please tell Apple to add support for Ogg; here's more info about why Apple should support Ogg.

1. Stop the moves in Europe to lock-down the Internet and install filters at every ISP, which are being pushed by the music, movie, and TV industries in cahoots with the telecoms giants that now control most of the ISP landscape.

2. Bring the Internet to Africa. For crying out loud, enough of the extortion already. Africans need cheap communications to escape their geographic and historic prison, and while GSM was a plausible attempt, it's being strangled by the telcos.

3. Invest in new platforms for free and open digital standards. These are the basis of the Internet and they are being strangled by firms like Microsoft which want to see their own technologies dominate.

Maybe this is what you are looking for: the Hague Declaration for open standards.

Bullshit! An open standard is a patent-free standard. Other standards as ISO etc. might be covered by patents. We call them standards as opposed to "open" standards although the specification is made available. Standards can be Spen Standards but not all standards are open. Proprietary Formats are no "standards" anyway, we speak of de-facto standards.

Generally speaking you can make the Open Source test. If it cannot be implemented using the GPL or BSD it is not an open standard. Otherwise we face a problem of vendor control.

Ah, and by the way:

Last September in Seattle, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates met Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, and Ashley Highfield, then director of new media and technology, now known as future media and technology. They signed a non-exclusive memorandum of understanding which aimed to identify areas of common interest between Microsoft and the BBC on which a strategic alliance could be developed.

A central area of potential co-operation is the BBC iPlayer project, for which the BBC Trust last week gave final approval following an open consultation.

So the BBC became a Microsoft drone and stopped its free codec project earlier this year.

The term "protection" is misleading. There is a strong democratic argument against use of patented formats by a public agency.

Either it is an open standard or it is a patent encumbered format aka "Microsoft Open Standard" or ITU-OpenStandard-is-a-popular-term-and-thus-should-cover-everything-we-did-in-standardisation-during-the-last-70-years.

There are many initiatives now which aim to defend open standards and ask governments to only procure only products which comply with true open standards. For instance the Digital Standards Organization launched the Hague Declaration.

You can sign the petition here.

It is important to lobby for true open standards that do not discriminate free software as those formats covered by RAND terms do.

Either it is an open standard or it is a patent encumbered format aka "Microsoft Open Standard" or ITU-OpenStandard-is-a-popular-term-and-thus-should-cover-everything-we-did-in-standardisation-during-the-last-70-years.

There are many initiatives now which aim to defend open standards and ask governments to only procure only products which comply with true open standards. For instance the Digital Standards Organization launched the Hague Declaration.

You can sign the petition here.

It is important to lobby for true open standards that do not discriminate free software as those formats covered by RAND terms do.

In the meanwhile, you can sign The Hague declaration in support for free and open digital standards

OK, since I'm one of the founders, I'm biased. But free and open source software needs free and open standards and the Digital Standards Organization is the only international network set-up specifically to defend and promote free and open digital standards.

Coincidentally, on the day we signed the Hague Declaration, Microsoft announced they would support ODF in Office.

Luckily, Digistan does not want your money, just your support. Sign the Hague Declaration online, and help us by getting involved.

OK, since I'm one of the founders, I'm biased. But free and open source software needs free and open standards and the Digital Standards Organization is the only international network set-up specifically to defend and promote free and open digital standards.

Coincidentally, on the day we signed the Hague Declaration, Microsoft announced they would support ODF in Office.

Luckily, Digistan does not want your money, just your support. Sign the Hague Declaration online, and help us by getting involved.

OK, since I'm one of the founders, I'm biased. But free and open source software needs free and open standards and the Digital Standards Organization is the only international network set-up specifically to defend and promote free and open digital standards.

Coincidentally, on the day we signed the Hague Declaration, Microsoft announced they would support ODF in Office.

Luckily, Digistan does not want your money, just your support. Sign the Hague Declaration online, and help us by getting involved.

It appears that Microsoft has about 280 patents around OOXML and related technologies. It also has a large number of patents that read on ODF. We're making a list of these and hope to be able to publish them soon.

There are also several patents from third parties that read on OOXML, and in theory ISO should halt the process while these are examined and cleared. It looks like ISO won't do that.

Microsoft has several techniques to keep OOXML a captive standard controlled by a single vendor. Complexity is one. But patents are the very best technique.

Note also that OOXML's complexity is mostly because it's a dump of a legacy format. Some upcoming MS ISO proposals are very clean technically, but also very heavily patented.

It seems clear that the OSP is worthless for GPL implementations, the biggest threat to Microsoft.

At the same time it's worth noting that the format being voted on by ISO is not the format implemented by Office. There are over 2,300 changes and the two formats are not compatible. The reason for pushing for ISO standardisation is to let MS market their formats as "standard", while in fact implementing non-standard vendor-specific formats. And then, using patent threats against anyone who tries to reverse-engineer those.

It's a nice con trick. Many national bodies have realized what's going on but many are too corrupted or too ignorant to understand.

It appears that Microsoft has about 280 patents around OOXML and related technologies. It also has a large number of patents that read on ODF. We're making a list of these and hope to be able to publish them soon.

There are also several patents from third parties that read on OOXML, and in theory ISO should halt the process while these are examined and cleared. It looks like ISO won't do that.

Microsoft has several techniques to keep OOXML a captive standard controlled by a single vendor. Complexity is one. But patents are the very best technique.

Note also that OOXML's complexity is mostly because it's a dump of a legacy format. Some upcoming MS ISO proposals are very clean technically, but also very heavily patented.

It seems clear that the OSP is worthless for GPL implementations, the biggest threat to Microsoft.

At the same time it's worth noting that the format being voted on by ISO is not the format implemented by Office. There are over 2,300 changes and the two formats are not compatible. The reason for pushing for ISO standardisation is to let MS market their formats as "standard", while in fact implementing non-standard vendor-specific formats. And then, using patent threats against anyone who tries to reverse-engineer those.

It's a nice con trick. Many national bodies have realized what's going on but many are too corrupted or too ignorant to understand.