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BSA Wants EU Open Standard Policy Reconsidered
XeRXeS-TCN writes "Benoît Müller of the BSA has written an open letter to the EU, criticising their focus on open standards for interoperability, as this would exclude things like DHCP, 802.1X and GSM. He also says that framework "shouldn't imply a link between open source and open standards"."
Ok, how about a shiny new EU icon? With so many stories about it wouldn't it be nice?
eEurope? eGovernment? The 90's called, they want their e's back.
The BSA is Microsoft Marketing's enforcement division. We can now see, from the emerging chorus of consistent PR, the new frontline in the proprietary/open/free IP war. The proprietary companies have retreated to "open standards", to relieve the "open source" pressure that would otherwise crush or abandon them. It's a major victory - for users and developers on both sides of the lines. But it's not yet in hand: winning "the peace" will mean keeping the standards open, and not letting these slimy weasels turn closed, undocumented "Office 2003" file formats into an acceptably "open" standard, because it's merely "standard", and not open. The momentum of interop'ing closed with open systems will turn more of the systems open - their source as well as their formats.
--
make install -not war
Not surprising. The business software alliance which is funded by proprietary closed-source software companies wants proprietary standards instead of open standards. They also want proprietary closed-source software instead of open-standard open-source software.
If open standards and open source software were to become prevalent, how would they shake down companies?
I'm a big tall mofo.
The BSA's main objection to the EIF is that it requires a standard to be "irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis" and impose no constraints on "re-use." Such restrictions don't allow standards that, for example, rely on patents for which a royalty may be charged, according to Müller.
Oh yes, I'm crying my eyes out over that one.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
So the BSA wants to say that open standards mean open source? Does this mean that they're afraid that they can't compete with F/OSS initiatives on an equal footing? That they need to leverage proprietary standards in order to keep market share?
r wise.
As for the inclusion of patented IP in open standards, it's pretty much an oxymoron: if it's an open standard, there should be no strings attached (e.g., cisco's vrrp, Sun's elliptic curve cryptography in OpenSSL). Open should mean open, not we'll-let-you-play-with-this-until-we-decide-othe
Could somebody please explain what the problem with DHCP is? There certainly seem to be plenty of documents to enable open implementations to me. Or are they talking about some proprietary Microsoft extension to DHCP that is rightly being ignored by everyone else?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Open standards will guarantee that your data is safe. What happens if the company that makes the software goes out of business? If the format is open you will at least be able to retrieve the data. I don't think that all software has to be completely open, but the data formats need to be open. This gives the customer the choice of what software to run and lets them update when there is a need to update, not when they are told they have to update.
Another good example is the de facto open standard called the x86 instruction set. When Intel was the sole producer of microprocessors based on this standard, prices tended to be higher than what they could be. However, competition from AMD forced Intel to slash prices and to drastically raise the bar on performance. Hence, if Intel were the sole producer of x86-based microprocessers, your computer would probably still be using the 80386, and the Pentium 4 with EMT64 with be a century down the road while Intel continued to reap monopoly profits.
Open standards are great -- for the consumer!
Closed standards are exclusory, open standards aren't.
An open standard can be freely used by the closed standard company (e.g. Microsoft can use HTML), whereas the closed standard can't be used by the rest of the world. (e.g. the Microsoft patented XML formats need a license to use).
For example, Microsofts XML document format is patented. To use it you need a product that has licensed from them or Microsoft's own product.
So if the EU publishes in that format, then they have set a precondition that the reader has to accept Microsofts terms for use of that document format.
If you choose not to accept those Microsoft terms then you are excluded from reading the EU document.
Their constitution forbids them from being exclusory so by definition they must opt for the open standard.
What exactly is the problem with MS using open standards and competing with the rest of the companies? Why hide behind the BSA?
If M$ and the BSA had their way everyone would be using .xls and .doc formats. It's just not wise for a government to be beholden to a company for access to their own data. From a simple security standpoint it just makes sense for a person, a company, a state to have ready access to their data despite the application and open standards do that. In effect, Muller is saying, "You're taking our chance to profit from your insecurity away from us." Notice that he doesn't seem to be advising these proprietary companies to adopt open standards which would in the long run give them the access to government bids that they covet. That should cause any head of state to be alarmed.
Suppose:
EU decides that European citizens can sue Software companies for bad software and publishes that law in some proprietary Microsoft format.
Microsoft EULA for the program to read that document says users accept they can only sue MS for a maximum of $10 damages.
By publishing in that proprietary format they have let a company tack on a rider onto that law.
The government should do this more often. By simply rewriting the dictionary so that words now mean the opposite of what they did before, we can solve all the world's problems! War, famine, poverty, disease...
Best of all, since I have patented this method of problem solving, it is now an Open Standard; this means it is free for anyone (who I choose not to sue) to use!
Why the hell do the boyscouts care what's going on in Europe, anyway?
Two and a half years ago, in June 2002, European heads of state adopted the eEurope Action Plan 2005 at the Seville summit. It calls on the European Commission "to issue an agreed interoperability framework to support the delivery of pan-European eGovernment services to citizens and enterprises". This framework would address information content and recommend technical policies and specifications to help connect public administration information systems across the EU. The Action Plan also stipulated that the Framework would "be based on open standards and encourage the use of open source software".
The blurb goes on:
To attain interoperability in the context of pan-European eGovernment services, guidance needs to focus on open standards. The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard:
- The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
- The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
- The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis.
This approach was adopted by the parliament in April 2004 (nearly 11 months ago). And only now are BSA making noises?
Seems to me, that as the BSA is a front for software patent pressure that they have released this letter to muddy the waters after the (almost) non-software-patent decision taken by the EU Thursday.
Did he inhale?
The term "Reasonable" is nebulous, (what is reasonable to you?) and non discriminatory is incorrect as it shuts out all open source software.
This needs to be clearly brought to the attention of EU politicians and media. There are certainly standards the EU cannot control, (DHCP, 802.11, etc.) but they must stick to their guns for standards that they can control. As for the IEEE adopting standards that include restrictive patents, well that is something I am trying to change from within, unless they are willing to open the relevent patent for use in FOSS as IBM has recently done.
If you want to bid on contracts with proprietary software, go ahead - but the file formats and protocols must be kept open in order to avoid vendor lock-in, and allow for interoperability. After all, this Bill Gate's latest big spiel wasn't it?
My rights don't need management.
the Boy Scouts of America care?
If you have tried a different PXE client than the one Microsoft uses( the RIS boot disk), you will notice that they don't follow the standard for PXE file naming and other PXE clients(following standards) will fail.
This is pretty usual for Microsoft, they implement a standard, but do certain things their own way
I you want us to use your standards... just make them open...
Financially the BSA is by far the most funded by Microsoft (Adobe is a distant far second if I recall correctly).
As Microsoft's biggest 3 competitors are:
1) itself and her older versions (seriously, MS looks at this in that way)
2) piracy, hence their involvement in creating the BSA and funding it
3) Linux (which we will not discuss here
On another note they also use the BSA in Europe to lobby for software patents and to say that MS's XML is an 'open document format enough' (at least in Belgium, out of personal experience).
I guess it must be like that out/in own pocket operation of Mr. Gates with his 'Foundation' helping poor children in the third world by buying MS licenses for them...
The BSA accuses confustion between Open Standards and Open Source. They are not confused" "Open Source Software (OSS) tends to use and help define open standards and publicly available specifications. OSS products are, by their nature, publicly available specifications, and the availability of their source code promotes open, democratic debate around the specifications, making them both more robust and interoperable. As such, OSS corresponds to the objectives of this Framework and should be assessed and considered favourably alongside proprietary alternatives. of a single solution that is developed once and fits the needs of all. " Nothing confusing about that statement. They do not exclude closed software, simply state that standards should be unencumbered and that open source should be considered. No need for panic here. Microsoft would not be rejected because of a preference to Open Source but would be in hot water bacause they will never use truly open standards. The BSA is trying to spread FUD because Joe Public will not read the EU document. Joe Public is busy ridding his MS PC from spyware and viruses.
... where the heck you can find this "open" letter? The eWeek article has quotes from it, sure, but no link that I could see. Perhaps there's a subtle point being made - open standards should be accessible to all in the same way this open letter should be accessible to all.
Logic is a wonderful thing but doesn't always beat actual thought. -Terry Pratchett
He also says that framework "shouldn't imply a link between open source and open standards"
Aside from a citation at the beginning of the document, "open source" and "open standards" are not tied together anywhere in the document. The framework itself only recommends that projects make "use of open standards" and "assess the benefits of open source software" along with other things such as security, accessibility and multilingualism as general principles to foster interoperability. And from the standpoint of interoperability, it only makes sense to do so.Fundamentally, open source and open standards are completely orthogonal concepts. Commercial sofware may implement open standards. Open source software may make use of non-standard protocols or file formats. The only relation between them should be that a standard to be considered truly open should be implementable in open source form (in other words, anybody should be able to implement a specification, no royalties required).
RChttp://a1767.g.akamai.net/v/1767/2939/30d/imageser v.adtech.de/images/Ad247098St1Sz225Sq1Id1.gif
Whatever would we do without the BSA?
..that they would post an Open letter criticising open standards and open source.
The "patent" icon does just fine!
" EULA and click-wrapping are basically not enforcable in the EU"
This is an End User Agreement between yourself and Microsoft America. You agree that the state of Washington has jurisdiction over this agreement....
Don't dismiss EULAs so lightly, the same forces that push EULA in the USA (and have 2 court cases so far in their favour!) are pushing them in Europe too.
Mueller makes the peculiar argument that the EU open standard requirement is a bad idea because it is not the same requirement as existing standard bodies use, ie, the EU desired practice is wrong because it is different from the current practice. Unfortunately, if this argument were valid, it would preclude ANY law or regulation from being passed as such an act would of neccessity change the staus quo. Libertarians would rejoice, but otherwise, it seems kind of pointless. One would imagine that should be the goal of the legislature to improve life for it's citizens, and whatever the merits of patent encumbered standards it is clear that from the consumers point fo view, they serve only to raise prices.
I guess the customer is never right anymore. It seems ompanies with BSA membership can't make money giving the customer what they want.
-- Some people say they can tell the time by looking at the Sun, but I have trouble seeing the numbers.
Since when did EU adapt software patents?
So if there are no software patents in EU (and hopefully never will be), what can hinder EU to use standards that are presumambly encumbered with software patents?
I'm sorry, but in the process of protecting Mickey Mouse, the Orwell family patent on that plan was expired. Err, doubleplusunextended.
:)
As such, it is valid in perpetuity.
Pay up.
hawk
Open source software guarantees open standards. That's the connection I make.
That is, binding agreements must be signed
Until the retail store selling copies of proprietary software starts printing a summary of the EULA on the charge slip that you must sign in order to be allowed to remove goods from the store. Are stores in EU member states allowed to refuse cash as a method of payment?
One has to wonder in all of this what incentive the European Union has to pay any attention to Microsoft. MS is a corporation based in the United States, a competitor. Microsoft has a functional monopoly on several forms of essential software. One of only a few possible leverages against Microsoft is the establishment of requirements of the data allowed by your political entity. I can't understand why the EU would think twice about this matter. What possible benefit could there be to caving to Microsoft's demands? For a small political entity like Massachusetts it might make sense (at least in the short term) to cave, since such a small government market couldn't expect to have any leverage. But the EU can make all sorts of demands. They can kick this bully all over the playground if they want to.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
Europeans are also fairly interested in preserving culture. With open standards like "pen", "paint", "paper", "rock", and "chisel" the Romans and the people of the Renaissance and countless others have been able to create a rich cultural history.
Just imagine what would have happened if early Europeans used DRM protected media to record their culture? We'd still be in the Dark Ages because nothing would be readable.
Technology makes media and media formats obsolete. Those 8" disks you bought two and a half decades ago aren't usable today. Neither are 8 track tapes or 5 1/4 inch disks. The only ways those works will live on is if they get copied onto new media. Unfortunately, a lot of things didn't make it. Many classic cellulose silent films from the Golden Era are gone because celluose film was too fragile and it was. The Alouette satelite of the 60s did an enormous amount of research on the upper atmosphere and stored it on tapes that can only be read by old mainframes. That research is important for o-zone study but because there are only a few such mainframes in existence, it would take years to transfer all that data onto modern media. In the mean time, much of that research will die.
The last thing we need is for DRM and DRM laws to quicken the rate which "data rots".
Progress and culture depend on a DRM-free future.
Imagine the game of cat and mouse.
EU ponders and conjutates for 3-4 years: "Software companies are liable for bad software."
Microsoft lawyers the next day: "Change the EULA to say we are only liable for $10 worth"
EU ponders and conjutates for 3-4 years: "Software companies cannot set limits on the liability"
Microsoft lawyers change the EULA the next day:
"By not returing this product in the first 30 days you are agreeing the product is defect free".
EU ponders and conjutates for 3-4 years...."EULAs are contracts *after* a sale and hence unenforceable".
Microsoft lawyers the next day, "sellers of Microsoft software must get the buyer to sign the EULA before taking the payment".
Legendary electronics hobbyist Don Lancaster has what I consider to be the must-read page on why patents never help the individual inventor: Patent Avoidance.
Now that's news!
BSE: Creates mad cow in cattle which causes sickness in humans.
BSA: Creates cash cows in Microsoft which causes sickness in humans.
Coincidence? I think not!
I am guessing it is just a scare tactic.
Lets look at the others:
GSM: Formerly proprietary. Iirc, patents have expired. The GSM codec, for example, is commonly used in asterisk implimentations.
802.1x: IEEE standard. Unclear about patent encumbrances though. Won't take off IMO if too encumbered. Many standards are not really unencumbered and so are not readily employed.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Hey BSA, if your customers want to enjoy the freedom to use any product they want to service their data (which is really what computing is about) then you'd better get with the program. Your customers don't want to be dependant on you as a sole provider any longer. Either give the customer what he wants or die. It's that simple.
Now I'm upset. The only European country that have software patents already is GB. So what the **** is he talking about when he mentions patents and software standards in the same sentence?...
The Boy Scouts of America?
That's what "BSA" means to me when I grok it.
But the question I haven't seen asked (or answered) anywhere is
This discussion really cannot progress until Microsoft's people can explain EXACTLY what functionality they would lose IF they supported Open file formats (as the default format).
I hear a lot of crying about "patents" and "IP" and "innovation" and "don't give Open Source an unfair advantage", but I haven't heard what the technological problem would be with supporting an Open file format (without any patent restrictions or other IP problems).
Microsoft, are you going to step up and say what the technological problem is?
=============
Yeah, I know what the real problem is and it ain't tech. It's all about control of your data and making it as expensive as possible for you to switch.
What can we do to encourage large users (governments and large companies) to adopt open file formats? If the largest customers of software demand open formats and actually base purchases on them, I would expect more software to support open data formats. I have written my representatives (local and federal) and suggested it to my employer, but what other options are available to improve the situation?
eU
Wow, a post about vested interests from a guy with an ad for a sig. Just don't ask him about car insurance!
It's very simple.
Lets say you smoke sigarettes. Are you going to burn down the sigarette factory?
You know you should...but the alternative would be, well, chew bubblegum. Ofcourse there are weirdo's who do that, but your not yet completely sure its the right thing for you. Best to try and not be too nasty to them just yet, until you're a bit more familiar with that other product...
Though the Business Software Alliance picked their name to backronym nicely over the Not Evil original BSA.
Help us build a better map!
Like the old saying says - "You don't need a patent on bread to make a living as a baker."
Is that an old saying, or something you just made up and called old so it would have more gravitas? It can't be that old a saying, since it refers to patents.
I only ask 'cause I like it, and it's going in my quotefile.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
...go do something useful..like..um...hunt down those scRipT kiDdi3z who be pwning j00 waReZ like you used to. Remember ?
Bwahahah. No one likes the BSA. BSA == M$'s bitch
the problem with open standards is they prevent closed source vendors from fucking over customers and competitors with screwy file formats that only work in their software
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
He also says that framework "shouldn't imply a link between open source and open standards".
Yes, it shouldn't. Open source does imply open standards, but who's fault is it that open standards implies open source? It's not just a saying.
Direct away from face when opening.
Check it out! The BSA is Microsoft's enforcement arm... don't believe me? STFW for Ernie Ball and see what they did to, not competing companies, but to their own customers!
Fuck 'em; just fuck 'em!
This is nothing more than another effort to make sure that proprietary software is the ONLY software that will be allowed in the future! And, since it is only their software, to make sure that they can fuck their own customers in any way they want!
Well Microsoft did threaten to fire hundreds of people working at Navision, located in Denmark, see this article, if software patents were not accepted by the EU.
You would think behaving like an organised crime cartel would set alarm bells ringing. And now we have a Microsoft-affiliated group making waves in an obvious attempt to destroy transparency, interoperability and fair competition.
The 'facts' they bought to the table in support of their argument are pretty easily refuted, one hopes that the EU sees through this blatant cash and power grab and stays firmly behind their decsion.
I work as a programmer for the State of Washington. It really surprises me that State and Federal governments do not advocate the use of open standards more.
We in the US unfortunately were lead down the patent path where anything we code could easily violate another's patent. I'm pretty sure that with the thousands of patents being applied for by Microsoft alone in any given year it will be very difficult not to violate some of them.
If you follow open standards you may avoid some problems. I does NOT surprise me that the BSA doesn't want open standards. After all, they are in the business of bitch slapping people who use proprietary software and proprietary software will typically use proprietary "standards."
If the EU really gets a clue (and I believe some members have.) they will avoid any kind of proprietary lock-in and anything like proprietary standards and patents that promote that. It may take a few years but if they stay the course we here in the US could lose any edge we have in the software sector simply because the laws bought and paid for my monopoly interests will stifle innovation here.
The EU will be able to sit back and watch as small US software companies give up because they don't dare release software that may violate patent laws. Small companies don't have the resources to hire the army of attorneys required to do the research needed to ensure that they don't violate patent laws. No doubt about it. Patent laws do NOT help small to mid size software companies. Software patent laws do exactly what they were designed to do: stifle competition for the corporate monopolies. hehe... I seem to have digressed but it all fits together.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I agree that Open Standards are much more important than (and distinct from) Open Source.
We all use the Internet, but some use GNU-Linux, some use a Mac, some use Windows.
There no reason to force everything into open source (yes, mod me down for this). Allow some room for private competition.
Read the headline, I was thinking "Boy Scouts of America" and thinking "the boy scouts of America has an European part that lets atheists and gays in? Cool!"
What a disappointment, dammit.
Doug
http://nilknarf.net
"Dishonesty is one of the ugliest possible human characteristics. Being dishonest and proud about is about the only poss
Or should I say, Benoit von Mueller?
Great Mueller!
The ECC in OpenSSL is a 'patent grant' from Sun.
l yA skedQuestions.html
From research.sun.com:
"Why the additional "covenant" language in the Sun license?
The OpenSSL's standard BSD style license does not address patent issues explicitly. Sun added a "patent peace provision" language to clarify its patent grant."
This is why OpenBSD ships with an ECC-less OpenSSL.
http://research.sun.com/projects/crypto/Frequen
First it was getting all homophobic, now the Boy Scouts of America have gone and become a shill for Microsoft!?!?! I'm burning my merit badges!
JK, but I swear when I first read the headline the first thing that popped into my head were the Scouts rather than the Buisness Software Alliance (as you say, the Microsoft Mafia Divison)
I found some here and here
I agree 100% with the parent, but one phrase came off as a little weird:
don't give Open Source an unfair advantage
I personally haven't ever heard anyone utter this phrase with regards to file formats or software. But just in case someone actually has said these words and meant what they said, I would like to point out one thing. As a business, your competition does not gain an "unfair advantage" when you do something that your customers don't like and they do things that your customers do like. They don't have an "unfair advantage". You're just being a "bad capitalist".
Remember, businesses are supposed to compete in a free market. If a business suffers and dies because they aren't willing to give their customers what they really want and their competition is willing, then the market does not need them. In a free market, no business is entitled to automatic profits. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
Have I made a wrong turn?
BSA--You aren't referring to British Small Arms, the company who made those nice motorcycles in the 50's? Or even those cute Boy Scouts of America? Surely you don't mean Boston Society of Architects or Botanical Society of America. British Stammering Association is right out of the question. Right?
BSA must have an entirely different meaning here.
...omphaloskepsis often...
...several Chanellors and the like speaking of the EEC as "Europe Entirely Catholic" and being a reincarnation of Charlemagne's Empire.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In particular, the EU and the religious power behind it is symbolised by the scarlet women riding the beast, who makes war with the remains of the primitive Church, who are witnesses of (testifiers to) Jesus Christ.
Several of the people who pushed the EU together were adamant that they were doing it for the benefit of the Roman Catholic Church, as a kind of reinstantiation of Charlemagne's Empire. All of them were devout Marians. This is the politics which drove the formation of the EEC. It's really got nothing to do with coal and steel. Read up on it, you'll be amazed.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
One has to wonder in all of this what incentive the European Union has to pay any attention to Microsoft.
EU? None. EU's politicians? Now, that's a different story. You know, there is sailing season coming and yachts cost some.
Unlike MS Office, OOo supports several open file formats, including OASIS' OpenDocument which is already on it's way to being supported by dozens of applications -- but not MSO. Losing control of the file format means that MS would eventually lose that revenue stream. That's why it's lobbying so hard to force sw patents into the EU and to hinder further spread of open standards everywhere.
Open standards are what made the Internet and the WWW possible. There were many networks and even some internets back in the 60's and 70's but none took off because being proprietary prevented easy adoption. Enter TCP/IP and later HTTP and HTML.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
BSA is in trouble. Even proprietary standards will be available because such won't be patentable in EU and therefore open implementations will arise, making those standards acceptable (and BSA without their profit).
Well Microsoft arranged with a political party in a new eu country to give lots of software for next to nothing in price. It gave a political advantage, indeed. In return, did they make the government vote in favour of software patents? Is this foreign interference in national affairs or not? There's a law against that.
Is the BSA stepping up its efforts elsewhere as it is in Wichita, KS?
They've been running SCADLOADS of commercials on the local radio stations - the standard "Piracy is a crime - this is a nice business, it would be a shame if anything were to happen to it, say a disgruntled employee were to snitch on you (by calling 1-888-MESNITCH). You should call us for insurance on your software" commercials.
Is this just a local thing, or is this a part of an increased campaign of extortion nationwide?
www.eFax.com are spammers
and I'll remind everyone that one of their main funders is microsoft.