Of Microsoft, Netscape, Patents and Open Standards

I still remember well the day in October 1994 when I downloaded the first beta of Netscape's browser. It was instantly obvious that this was a step beyond anything we'd had until then, and that it was the dawn of a new Internet era.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Standards Licensing: Apple's Key Evidence

As regular readers know, there is a struggle going on between the free software community that needs open standards to be RF (strictly speaking "restriction-free", but usually called "royalty-free") and traditional companies based on proprietary software that are pushing for FRAND - Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory - not least because it will allow licences like the GNU GPL to be excluded. The argument is that RF means that any claimed patents within a standard must be made available at zero cost - and that, the proponents of FRAND insist, is unworkable, since companies will not be prepared to "sacrifice" their patents in this way.

On Open Enterprise blog.

EC Defends Interoperability, but Misses Bigger Picture

Here's an interesting move from the European Commission:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Open Standards Consultation Submission

Somewhat belatedly (apologies), here is the second part of my analysis of the UK government's Open Standards consultation. As well as a quick look at the remaining two chapters, I include my responses to individual questions at the end.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Season on Open Standards

The increasingly heated debates about the traditionally dull area of computer standards is testimony to the rise of open source. For the latter absolutely requires standards to be truly open - that is, freely implementable, without any restrictions - whereas in the past standards were pretty much anything that enough powerful companies agreed upon, regardless of how restrictive they were.

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Government: Open Standards Must be RF, not FRAND

As regular readers of this column will know, one of the key issues for open source - and openness in general - is what is meant by open standards. Too loose a definition basically allows the other kinds of openness to be undermined from within the citadel.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Of Standards and Software Patents

Xiph.org has an interesting name and the following forthright self-description:

Xiph.Org is a collection of open source, multimedia-related projects. The most aggressive effort works to put the foundation standards of Internet audio and video into the public domain, where all Internet standards belong." ...and that last bit is where the passion comes in.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Do We Still Need the FSF, GNU and GPL?

It's easy to take things for granted – to assume that the world will always be as it is. And then sometimes you receive a mild jolt: some new information appears that makes you sit up and reconsider your preconceptions.

On The H Open.

Interoperability and Open Standards: Help Make It Happen

In a previous column, I mentioned that I was invited to talk at a meeting at the European Parliament about innovation prizes last week. That's not something that often happens, and I frequently get to hear about meetings only after the event, when it's too late, which is very frustrating. But happily here's one on the 16th June entitled “Interoperability and standards: making it happen“ that I've come across in time:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Government Promises to Go Open - Yet Again

Sometimes it seems like I've written the same story about UK government IT plans again and again. You know the one: after years of empty promises, the UK government assures us that this time is will really open up, embracing open source and openness in all its forms.

On Open Enterprise blog.

True Open Standards; Open Source Next?

One of the ironies of this column, which appears in a UK title, and is about the use of open source software in large enterprises, is that the biggest UK enterprise of all - the UK government - is singularly backward when it comes to using open source.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Tim BL: Open Standards Must be Royalty-Free

Yesterday I went along to the launch of the next stage of the UK government's open data initiative, which involved releasing information about all expenditure greater than £25,000 (I'll be writing more about this next week). I realised that this was a rather more important event than I had initially thought when I found myself sitting one seat away from Sir Tim Berners-Lee (and the intervening seat was occupied by Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.)

Sir Tim came across as a rather archetypal professor in his short presentation: knowledgeable and passionate, but slightly unworldly. I get the impression that even after 20 years he's still not really reconciled to his fame, or to the routine expectation that he will stand up and talk in front of big crowds of people.

He seems much happier with the written word, as evidence by his excellent recent essay in the Scientific American, called "Long Live the Web". It's a powerful defence of the centrality of the Web to our modern way of life, and of the key elements that make it work so well. Indeed, I think it rates as one of the best such piece I've read, written by someone uniquely well-placed to make the case.

But I want to focus on just one aspect here, because I think it's significant that Berners-Lee spends so much time on it. It's also timely, because it concerns an area that is under great pressure currently: truly open standards. Here's what Berners-Lee writes on the subject:

The basic Web technologies that individuals and companies need to develop powerful services must be available for free, with no royalties. Amazon.com, for example, grew into a huge online bookstore, then music store, then store for all kinds of goods because it had open, free access to the technical standards on which the Web operates. Amazon, like any other Web user, could use HTML, URI and HTTP without asking anyone’s permission and without having to pay. It could also use improvements to those standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, allowing customers to fill out a virtual order form, pay online, rate the goods they had purchased, and so on.

By “open standards” I mean standards that can have any committed expert involved in the design, that have been widely reviewed as acceptable, that are available for free on the Web, and that are royalty-free (no need to pay) for developers and users. Open, royalty-free standards that are easy to use create the diverse richness of Web sites, from the big names such as Amazon, Craigslist and Wikipedia to obscure blogs written by adult hobbyists and to homegrown videos posted by teenagers.

Openness also means you can build your own Web site or company without anyone’s approval. When the Web began, I did not have to obtain permission or pay royalties to use the Internet’s own open standards, such as the well-known transmission control protocol (TCP) and Internet protocol (IP). Similarly, the Web Consortium’s royalty-free patent policy says that the companies, universities and individuals who contribute to the development of a standard must agree they will not charge royalties to anyone who may use the standard.

There's nothing radical or new there: after all, as he says, the W3C specifies that all its standards must be royalty-free. But it's a useful re-statement of that policy - and especially important at a time when many are trying to paint Royalty-Free standards as hopeless unrealistic for open standards. The Web's continuing success is the best counter-example we have to that view, and Berners-Lee's essay is a splendid reminder of that fact. Do read it.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Time to Learn from China on Open Standards?

One of the major battles under way in Europe is over open standards. As its name suggests, an open standard is one that is open to all, without restrictions or obstacles; anything less than that is just window-dressing.

On Open Enterprise blog.

China (Hearts) Royalty-Free Standards?

This sounds great news for free software (and the world):

China recently circulated a draft regulation regarding the use of patents in Chinese national standards. The regulation demands that for patents to be eligible for incorporation in standards, they must be made irrevocably available royalty free or for a nominal fee. This will have dramatic consequences for foreign and domestic innovators.

The royalty-free option is exactly what free software needs, and what patent holders have been fighting against so hard in the West (nominal fee is still problematic, though).

The interesting thing is that as China becomes the world's biggest market, what happens there will inevitably affect elsewhere. So this is by no means a parochial issue. (Via @zoobab.)

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

(Still) Defending Openness in the EU

On Open Enterprise blog.