Internet Standards Groups Unite Behind Open Processes

alphadogg writes in with an excerpt from Network World:"Five leading Internet standards bodies have joined together to articulate a set of guidelines for the creation of open standards that they say will foster continued innovation, competition and interoperability in the Internet industry. The IEEE, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the IETF, the Internet Society and the World Wide Web Consortium hammered out the language for their five basic principles for standards development over the course of the last few months. Dubbed 'OpenStand,' these lofty principles are envisioned as a modern paradigm for global, open standards development processes. The OpenStand principles are in sharp contrast to the more formal, government-driven efforts of rival standards bodies such as the International Telecommunication Union, which is an arm of the United Nations, and the International Organization for Standardization, a group of national standards bodies." Although the principles generally seem reasonable, they made no stand against patents in standards: "Standards specifications are made accessible to all for implementation and deployment. Affirming standards organizations have defined procedures to develop specifications that can be implemented under fair terms. Given market diversity, fair terms may vary from royalty-free to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND)."

Comments

Not that it will help

[jvillain]

But maybe some one could send a copy to ISO and let them know how it is done.

Re:Not that it will help

[falcon5768]

I'm pretty sure the IEEE has worked pretty well also as its their standards you are using to be able to access the internet and post your comment

Re:Not that it will help

[denis-The-menace]

MS has exposed that ISO will accept "Cash for Standards".
This has the ISO earning the acronym: "I Sold Out".

How many OTHER ISO standards have be bought?
For all we know, the MOO standard may be only one of many.

Re:Not that it will help

[hlavac]

IEEE is pretty ridiculous with their choping of the standards into multiple parts that each costs as the whole former standard!

Oblig.

[Revotron]

http://xkcd.com/927/

But seriously, so, now we're defining metastandards? Could somebody please explain the implications of this?

Re:Oblig.

[kwerle]

http://xkcd.com/927/

But seriously, so, now we're defining metastandards? Could somebody please explain the implications of this?

No problem:

open?

[redneckmother]

So long as there are proprietary strings attached to the implementation of a "standard", it (in my view) can in no way be described as "open".

Re:open?

[sa666_666]

Yep, openness and proprietary concerns are diametrically opposed. The former seeks to standardize and homogenize, while the latter seeks to differentiate (aka, lock-in).

Re:open?

[alen]

blu ray and dvd are open standards and they have patents. along with 3g wireless and wifi

if you want your patents as part of the standard you have to agree to license them to anyone who asks at the same low rate. otherwise the standard is changed to go around your patent

Re:open?

[gbjbaanb]

the trouble is, you can make a standard for something like gsm phones, and have to pay motorola a cent or two for each device sold, in order to recompense them for the millions of dollars they spent innovating something essential to such devices. Then someone else comes along and says "you can't have it rectangular" and you have to give them billions.

This is why the patent encumbrance is a bad thing for open standards. I would be happy to have all patents used in such devices considered under the same FRAND terms, that would be ok, so you'd pay 1c per device if you made it rectangular with rounded corners or use a swipe to unlock it etc. Or I'd like to say no patents allowed whatsoever for open standard-based devices, but I'd worry that would only make companies spend their energies making non-standard things instead.

So, yes, patents, but all on the same terms.

Re:open?

[Imagix]

There's a difference in that example though. There is no standard that says "must be rectangular". The shape of the device shouldn't be specified in the standard. As a result, you can implement a gsm phone that is spherical, or cylindrical, or whatever shape may strike your fancy, as far as the standard is concerned. What happens outside of the standard is a whole different issue.

bleargh

[sticks_us]

Apparently nobody reads Padlipsky anymore.

I have a simpler creed

[girlintraining]

"Don't be a douchebag."

If the internet were based on this very simple notion of resolving our differences in a civilized fashion, and having honest and intelligent debate, 98% of this kind of crap would go away. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a single mother getting uppity about her uterus rights on Facebook, and I have a three o'clock with some mormons on a website to ask how magnets work.

*puffs up chest* *whoosh* *flies away*

Re:I have a simpler creed

[CanHasDIY]

"Don't be a douchebag."

If all interpersonal interactions were based on this very simple notion of resolving our differences in a civilized fashion, and having honest and intelligent debate, 98% of this kind of crap would go away.

FTFY.

Re:no purpose

[pellik]

Yes, clearly this article is... sub-standard.

Best comment at TFA

[LeadSongDog]

One "PeteX" writes:

Looking on the bright side, though, I've patented /dev/zero. I'm going to sell your own zeroes back to you, at 1p per megabyte. I'm offering a discount if you buy a gigabyte of zeroes all at once.

That'd be a savings from ten pounds of naughts.

Hypocrites

[Hentes]

Here is an "open" IEEE wifi standard hidden behind a paywall not to mention the nasty patents attached to it. If they really care about openness, licence their existing standards under CC.

Re:Hypocrites

[falcon5768]

oh god forbid you pay 5 dollars that goes to paying them for making it available for you.... Open doesnt mean Free. Geeks need to get that through their thick skulls that just because something is open for everyone to use DOESNT mean its going to be free.

Re:Hypocrites

[ShoulderOfOrion]

I only wish most of the standards bodies had fair and reasonable terms like $5. Some examples: let's say you want to make a small USB peripheral device. If you want a vendor ID, expect to pay $2000 to the USB-IF. You want an OUI from IEEE so you can create your own Ethernet MAC addresses? That's $1825. How about a copy of the VESA DisplayPort 1.2 standard? They'd prefer you become a member, at $3500 a year. Forget about HDMI. That starts at $10000 a year.

If you're an electronics hobbyist, or someone into the Maker hobbies, or a small manufacturer, forget about it. The big boys don't want you playing in their sandbox. For example, when one company had the bright idea of buying a USB vendor ID (a 16 bit number) and then selling chunks of the associated product ID block (another 16 bit number) to hobbyists and small companies for a small fee, the USB-IF had a fit and shut them down by threatening to sue.

Far too often, standards bodies are more like craft guilds than impartial protectors of the common good. Invariably it is the open and accessible-to-all standards, like those from the IETF, that generate the most long-term economic activity and public good. (Like, the Internet.) But, that notion is not what most 'standards' bodies are about. A standard is not 'Open' when the cost of entry is prohibitive to all but the largest companies, and small companies and individuals need not apply. When I, an individual, can buy a copy of the DisplayPort standard for $5 so I can interface my custom Rasberry Pi device to my monitor, or when I can click on a link on the MPEG LA website and pay $5 for a 'license' to use whatever H.264 encoding software I choose, only then will your premise that I should 'pay' have any validity whatsoever.

One Standard

[deapbluesea]

One standard to rule them all, One index to find them,

One group to bring them all and in the darkness bind them