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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?
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.
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make install -not war
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
There are no proprietary Microsoft DHCP extensions anyway. Microsoft makes use of the natural extensibility of DHCP like everyone else, and they define several of their own DHCP options which are duly implemented by ISC DHCP. The only other special thing about Microsoft DHCP is the use of dynamic DNS.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Open Standards are not the same as Open Software: there are numerous "Open Standard" compliant tools and operating systems that do proprietary, broken, unfixable things that customers or code developers cannot fix because of the closed source. Solaris tried this, although they seem to be learning.
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?
Anyway the point is that intel would have been pushed by competition in other markets, because otherwise the PC would die and the world would move on to a superior architecture. Of course, the PC architecture is finally showing some signs of evolution. Personally I would be happiest if PCs went to Open Firmware but intel certainly won't want to let that happen.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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
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...
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".
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.
Luckily I can get some text out by viewing the raw file or using tools like 'strings', but I'd much rather have all of the original marked up formatting.