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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"."
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
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?
Funny, isn't it? We just recently had to hear Bill Gates talk about Microsoft's commitment to interoperability, and then here we have the BSA trying to basically destroy open standards, which can help guarantee interoperability.
I'm having trouble understanding all this. Hopefully, one day, one of these two corporations can explain it to me, preferably in a nice, simplified language with all the unnecessary words removed. That'd be double-plus helpful.
They have a hard enough time updating the polls, what makes you think they will add an icon?
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.
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!
I you want us to use your standards... just make them open...
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?
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.
The EULA is not a recognized contract from start, so Microsoft can change their EULA all they want. It is no more legally binding because of that.
Whatever they write in their EULA, it is not enforcable unless you have signed it with ink on paper.
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?
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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.
Sure, but it takes years to change laws like that, and currently ink on paper is what is says in contract law.
Yeah, you can always go to your bank and say you didn't do the purcahse recorded.
There is nothing dishonest about it. EULA/click-wraps are not a valid agreement in the EU. Hence you can ignore them. You are not being dishonest, you are just ignoring "information" that is not relevant to you. You never enter into any agreement, as the form is not recognized as a legal form of contract.
I see your latter point, but that is not the current situation. The situation may change, but that day is the day to start worrying about clicking on EULAs. Until the law is changed, EULAs are just to be ignored, the toilet paper they are.
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!