Re: [ox-en] open standards
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 17:24:08 -0400 (EDT)
On Sun, 26 May 2002, Stefan Merten wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hi StefanMz and all!
Last week (13 days ago) Stefan Meretz wrote:
Am Freitag, 10. Mai 2002 11:11 schrieb Graham Seaman:
Bruce Perens is trying to put together a definition of 'Open Standards'
to complement the definitions for software.
Sounds like a Good Thing (tm) to me... :-)
http://perens.com/OpenStandards/
Most interesting seem to me:
"Patents embedded in standards must be licensed royalty-free, with
non-discriminatory terms."
This will be the first rule to be kicked in ongoing discussion, I guess,
because he wants to catch producers of proprietary software for that
OpenStandard.
I agree, that the intention of the rule is indeed clear: To get
agreement with patent holders.
More than 'agreement' I think. There was a recent case
of companies involved with standards committees waiting till a standard
had been agreed then announcing that they owned patents on parts of it.
This rule would stop that kind of trickery.
However, what is actually the bad thing about such a patent? Isn't the
meaning of such a patent more or less reduced to a enforced need to
name the originator of the idea? I'm really wondering.
I can't see anything bad about a patent in this case either. But it must
depend on what the patent covers: perhaps the patented idea could be
used for applications not part of the standard as well, in which case
fees could still be charged for its use in those applications.
Graham
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3in
Charset: noconv
Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface
iQCVAwUBPPE0iwnTZgC3zSk5AQEqTAP6Arb9GWmmz6ygIx2OAe/L2z+VgLe16g8l
uhDKLa4eYpBOA2G6B9FtVO2lYn/EpyaLnV/7LNe4IplF2DQ44DXAtJORnjDx2iry
0RLLgUykTvh+d1w/cCu6Skif/2zhGaP6BQaHDui+/0T6Mr3dW3PaCgeY3wrlbdPV
mM8CrIHvstc=
=wwBr
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/