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EU Wants To Redefine "Closed" As "Nearly Open"
Glyn Moody writes "A leaked copy (PDF) of Version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework replaces a requirement in Version 1 for carefully-defined open standards by one for a more general 'openness': 'the willingness of persons, organizations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community of interest.' It also defines an 'openness continuum' that includes 'non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome.' Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU."
Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU.
Actually, it looks like "corrupt" is the same old corrupt that it's always been. Gotta wonder just what changed hands to make that happen.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How hard is it to define open as
A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered
For just about everything there is a suitable open format. Lets see here:
Images? There are many
Audio? Ogg Vorbis
Video? Ogg Theora
Document? ODF or PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)
There isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
" also defines an 'openness continuum' "
So - just like Creative Commons, then?
(IHNRTFA)
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The older I get the more I realize how powerful those in power are. Not a conspiracy, just a bunch of greedy SOBs who will do whatever they can get away with to control and own more. From marketing being used to dilute meanings to out and out bribery of committee members to swing votes or bypass procedures. The worst part is that they get their power readily from another group, far more numerous than they, of individuals too lazy or too overwhelmed to pay attention to what is being done to them.
Our history is full of cycles. Are we approaching another age of the Robber Baron in another form? Did the age ever truly leave? Nah. The rich and powerful and greedy have always been and always will be the rich and powerful and greedy. Only now, they are immortal corporations. They can die, but not in ways we can, nor are they truly limited in years. The funny part, like a good tragic comedy, is that the greed that makes them so powerful and dangerous is often the very thing that kills them in the end.
But the carnage they leave behind.
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation have championed the use of the word free to make sure user freedom stays in sight as the primary goal. Free is ambiguous as it can mean free of cost or free as in freedom and there are lesser known meanings(sugar-free) but those two are the main ones. RMS, the FSF and others have chosen the word free to rally around for a reason. Its the best choice in having a debate about user freedom. Open on the other hand means many things to many people. It might mean that your backside is open to corporate exploration. It might mean that a store is open for business. It might mean that something exists somewhere on the spectrum from opaque to transparent. If you're going to care about something, care about freedom, not openness. Don't support legislation that attempts to define open, ouvert, etc. Support legislation that upholds free, freedom, libre, etc.
The previous version required that interoperability standards be owned by non-profit committees. Having worked with a number of such organizations I can tell you that as a customer, being locked into a committee-owned standard is as great an obstacle to innovation and efficiency as is a closed de facto standard, especially when the government is involved.
It will continue to be far better for the customer over time when the customer can pick and choose which standards and vendors they will use. This allows customers to choose the balance they want to strike between compatibility and richness of functionality.
I do agree that a reasonable criteria for use by government agencies is that a standard specification be free and unencumbered, but no thank you to design by committee.
By placing open on one and of the spectrum, and closed on the other, they very clearly are stating that the two are opposites. And to me, that seems like a perfectly fair and accurate description of the range of openness that exists in information systems and standards. Moreover, they conclude the section on openness with this recommendation:
Do you not see that by distorting their words to advance your own agenda, and attributing to them malicious intent without any basis in fact, you undermine the very cause which you pretend to champion? Is that what you want to do? Do you really want to undermine the credibility of those who advocate for free and open standards, especially in the public sector?
Here is the full text of the section on oppenness, so that everyone can see it in its entirety, and draw their own conclusions.
Goddamn! Who are the idiots who keep tagging everything idiocracy? It's pretty annoying. Is it supposed to be clever?
I'm checking "No Karma Bonus" since I'm posting off-topic on purpose. Sorry, but after the last few articles randomly tagged "idiocracy", I couldn't hold it in anymore. Mod me how you will.
The difference between that and closed source software is that if you're willing to pay for developers to make it do so, it darn well will and you don't have to ask anybodies permission for it or depend on anyone else to do it. Also, if it's under the GPL and you don't distribute it outside your company or group, you don't even have to share. Sure beats relying on external support and development you may not even be able to get in the future. That said, if a publishing house needed the software to do what you describe, then it would be done -- so please, don't trot out the "current solutions aren't applicable to my domain therefore all open source solutions and benefits must be rejected" horse.. it's old and needs to be put out to pasture. Given a bit of money and time, Scribus and other solutions that don't /quite/ meet your requirements could have some serious clout and be much less expensive to boot.
They are not out of touch. But people seem to think they are, this comes in the combination with the fact that the general population has a very bad knowledge of how the Union works.
I saw one comment in the line of: "damn the commission for forcing the Lisbon treaty on us", while it was in fact the European Council consisting out of the prime-ministers of the member-states who 1) took initiative for it and 2) signed the document.
Now, the other rather amusing thing is that, during previous EP elections, there was a poll in Sweden, where they asked people of whether they wanted the EU to grow into a sort of USE or whatever, in any case, the yes sayers where in the line of 15% for this (not really a majority, but still way over a million people), but when you start asking questions on the specifics and how they think the EU should be run, the solutions are almost always federal in nature.
The main point here is that people has in general no idea what they are talking about, and that the "out of touch" thing being that the top are using fancy words that their opponents have managed to get very charged from a political point of view. This include for example the word "federalism". In the now defunct constitutional treaty, the word "federal" was used in an early draft, but some head of state (think it was Tony Blair) in the negotiation got them to change the word to "supernational", technically they mean exactly the same thing, but the f-word is so charged with some people that they would not be able to stomach seeing it in a treaty.
You may of-course say that this just mean that the council is even more out of touch, but ask yourself:
The council consist of ministers from the member-states (executive officials who suddenly are law-makers), who are indirectly elected, do you think it is better that the directly elected parliament have more to say about any formed law?
Most people, even those who are opposed to an USE type organisation, say yes to the question I just wrote down, this is rather interesting, as that is basically support for a federal EU. A powerful council on the other hand makes the Union a more confederal styled organisation.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
Out of touch, to me, is a result of seeing them push the same stupid pro-lobbyist things over and over in the face of popular opposition. Basically, the way things are set up, the politicos seem more accountable to bribery than the populace. Not that we're better or anything.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
This post is simply wrong. The poster has completely distorted the message in the original text by using unfair citing methods.
If you actually read the article, it defines the openness continuum as the range *between* "freely [---] accessed, reused and shared" and "non-documented, proprietary software". Not very groundbreaking or controversial.
Boring.
On the other hand, it is obvious that nearly all responders with strong opinions on the matter also have not bothered to read the article.
Interesting?
Which begs the question of whether or not it should be illegal to implement technological measures to prevent others from doing so, or to intentionally remove access/compatibility that once existed.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
The biggest issue for the European Interoperability framework is that its first version pissed nearly everyone off by failing at every definition.
The biggest hurdle was to support "open standards" with an objective definition that didn't cut the European Standards Organisations (ESOs) out of the institutional picture. Of the three ESOs, two of their business models are based on selling copies of their standards to make money - which flies in the face of the part of the "open standard" definition that requires free access...
The issue of a "spectrum of openness" is only a secondary issue, invesnted to help around that dilemma: instead of a boolean "this is | is not an open standard", the compromise was to have instead a scale. Who gets to judge where something sits on the spectrum? Well, that now is the sticking point. Best bets would be for an agreed set of criteria, but let any agency who wants to use a particular standard make up their own mind.
This will mean that some will conclude that MSFT Office OOXML is totally open and others that it sucks; or that IETF RFC 2616 is totally open and others that it's managed by a non-recognised standards body, and therefore is not a standard....
This will run and run...
The simple fact is - that if the source ain't open then the 'standards' can't be open.
Yes, you can have open standards implemented with closed source. TCP/IP, for example, was a closed source open standard before KA9Q and others implemented their own versions.
An open standard, however, can't be defined by a closed source implementation (eg, OOXML), and an open standard can't require licenses for documentation or distribution. And it's the latter that this particular change is aimed at... letting European standards bodies that make money from licensing standards play in the sandpit along with kids who really DO share well with others.