UK: Open Standards Must Be Restriction Free 90
Glyn Moody writes "There has been a big battle in the UK over whether open standards should be Restriction/Royalty-Free (RF) or Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND). That matters, because open source can't in general implement FRAND standards (there are legal hacks that can be applied in a few special circumstances.) First it seemed that RF had the upper hand [.pdf], but later comments from officials cast doubt on that. Now we have the definitive answer from the UK Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude: 'The Government require that their ICT should be built on open standards, wherever possible, to improve competition and avoid lock-in to a particular technology or supplier. Fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) specifications may present some difficulties for the open source software development model in terms of patents and royalties. To deliver a level playing field for both open source and proprietary software, open standards are needed.' Will UK government use of open source finally take off, or is this a hollow victory?"
Re:Open ISO.... (Score:4, Informative)
No, you are not. You could even compile your own list of country codes (from wikipedia, e.g.), and publish it. What you cannot do is to buy a copy of an ISO standard, and print out 10 copies for your friends.
But yes, I too wish it wasn't so. That would in practice mean that the price of being a member of ISO for a country would have to rise significantly, with the obvious consequences.
Re:FRAND? (Score:4, Informative)
Fair - We control the standard however we cannot restrict you too much on how you decide to use it.
Reasonable - The pricing should not be enough to put you in the poor house however you may pay something to compensate for our work
And - (we need a vowel in our acronym, so it sounds like a word)
Non-Discriminatory - We cannot make sure that particular groups get advantages while others don't.