This Could be Big: Decentralized Web Standard Under Development by W3C https://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/his_could_be_big_decentralized_web_standard_under.php

http://www.w3.org/2011/04/webrtc-charter.html

Cf. http://newtechpost.com/2011/05/05/starfish-a-user-controlled-network

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International Aid Transparency Standard Finalised http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/news/2011/02/international-aid-transparency-standard-finalised/

http://www.aidtransparency.net/

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Setting standards without kings or votes: “[...] In the intervening 25 years, it turned into a standards organization that creates standards related to the technical operation of the Internet.

However, the IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] is quite a bit different from traditional standards organizations such as ANSI, ISO, or the IEEE Standards Association. Standards organizations typically have high thresholds for membership—in some cases, you can only join the club if you’re a country—and only make their standards available for a (high) fee. Not so with the IETF: “There is no membership in the IETF. Anyone may register for and attend any meeting. The closest thing there is to being an IETF member is being on the IETF or Working Group mailing lists.”

This comes directly from The Tao of IETF, which is the best introduction into this strange and wonderful world—short of attending a meeting in person. If you don’t have that kind of time, two quotes provide a pretty good feel of how the IETF sees itself: “We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code” (David Clark). And: “Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you accept” (Jon Postel). [...]” http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/25-years-of-ietf-setting-standards-without-kings-or-votes.ars

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“The following principles should govern the dissemination of primary legal materials in the United States:

1. Direct fees for dissemination of primary legal materials should be avoided.

2. Limitations on access through terms of use or the assertion of copyright on primary legal materials is contrary to long-standing public policy and core democratic principles and is misleading to citizens.

3. Primary legal materials should be made available using bulk access mechanisms so they may be downloaded by anyone.

4. The primary legal materials, and the methods used to access them, should be authenticated so people can trust in the integrity of these materials.

5. Historical archives should be made available online and in a static location to the extent possible.

6. Vendor- and media-neutral citation mechanisms should be employed.

7. Technical standards for document structure, identifiers, and metadata should be developed and applied as extensively as possible.

8. Data should be distributed in a computer-processable, non-proprietary form in a manner that meets best current practices for the distribution of open government data. That data should represent the definitive documents, not just aggregate, preliminary, or modified forms.

9. An active program of research and development should be sponsored by governmental bodies that issue primary legal materials to develop new standards and solutions to challenges presented by the electronic distribution of definitive primary legal materials. Examples include the automated detection and redaction of private personal information in documents.

10. An active program of education, training, and documentation should be undertaken to help governmental bodies that issue primary legal materials learn and use best current practices.”

http://public.resource.org/law.gov/

Legal Bug Tracker: http://bugs.resource.org/

Cf.: http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/12/help-us-debug-the-legal-bug-tr.html

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“Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences, prescriptive checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favour with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. However, such ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists are usually developed independently, from within particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and tracking their evolution is non-trivial; they are also inevitably partially-redundant one against another, and where they overlap arbitrary decisions on wording and substructuring make integration difficult. This presents significant difficulties for the users of checklists; for example, in the area of systems biology, where data from multiple biological domains and technology platforms are routinely combined. We offer a common portal to such MI checklists; to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant projects, foster collaborative development and ultimately promote gradual integration.” http://mibbi.org/index.php/About_us

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“The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web

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“After three years of continuous running battles, India’s Department of Information Technology has finalized the National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance. This incorporates many of the key points submitted by Red Hat. Over the last three years, we worked with our friends in government, academic, civil society and the media to push the Indian government in favor of a policy that mandates a single, royalty-free standard. The final policy and the comments that Red Hat had submitted are attached.” http://osindia.blogspot.com/2010/11/indian-open-standards-policy-finalized.html

Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance: http://egovstandards.gov.in/approved-standards/egscontent.2010-11-12.9124322046

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The International Space Station (ISS) Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) has approved for public release an International Docking System Standard (IDSS) which contains the information necessary to describe physical features and design loads of a standard docking interface.

International Space Station Partner Agencies:
Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
European Space Agency (ESA)
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

http://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/

http://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/download/IDSS_IDD_Basic_Revision_101810_1245.pdf

Cf:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/oct/HQ_10-266_Docking_Standards.html

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/10/19/2251230/International-Effort-Brings-an-Open-Standard-For-Docking-In-Space

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“Defending Open Standards: FSFE refutes BSA’s false claims to European Commission”:
“[...] 1. Royalty-free patent licensing opens up participation and promotes innovation
2. The BSA’s example standards are irrelevant to the software field
3. (F)RAND licensing in software standards is unfair and discriminatory
4. BSA not representative of even its own membership, much less of software industry as a whole
5. (F)RAND incompatible with most Free Software licenses
6. Recommended preference for Open Standards is entirely unrelated to EU’s negotiating position vis-a-vis China
7. Restriction-free specifications will promote standardisation, competition and interoperability
8. Recommendations [...]”

http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/bsa-letter-analysis.html

Cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/bsa-vs-eu
FYI: European Parliament Swallows the RAND Poison Pill http://techrights.org/2010/10/08/european-parliament-amendments-and-rand/

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Specific endorsement of IP-based open standards in European Interoperability Framework would preserve European innovation

Brussels, 7 Oct 2010

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) today recommended the European Commission amend the proposed European Interoperability Framework (EIF) for European Public Services [The EIF is to be adopted on 11 October 2010 as an annex to the Commission’s pending Communication “Towards Interoperable European Services”] to ensure that innovators who own patents and other intellectual property (IP) can participate in the procurement of eGovernment services in Europe.

A letter signed by BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman was submitted today to Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Digital Agenda; Antonio Tajani, European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship; Maroš Šefčovič, European Commissioner for Inter-institutional Relations and Administration; Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services; Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, and Karel De Gucht, European Commissioner for Trade. The letter called on the Commission to state explicitly that technologies made available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms are to be considered on equal terms with other technologies.

In its current form, EIF could be interpreted to encourage public administrations to extend preferences to “open specifications” when establishing eGovernment services, suggesting that standards must be free of intellectual property rights (IPR). The wording, the letter said, is “ambiguous” as it “could be read to mean that the most innovative European and foreign companies are not welcome to participate in standards processes if they own patents in the relevant technologies and seek compensation for their inventions.”

FRAND licensing policies allow inventors to charge a reasonable fee when their technologies are incorporated into specifications provided the technology is made available on FRAND terms to any person who wants to implement the standard. Such standards are highly flexible and can be implemented in a broad range of solutions, both open source and proprietary. The EU has consistently endorsed FRAND, including in EU policies on IP, standards, competition, and in practice, many of today’s most widely-deployed open specifications incorporate patented innovations that were invented by commercial firms, which are licensed to implementers on FRAND terms, including WiFi, GSM, and MPEG.

Holleyman continued, “We strongly support the EU’s efforts to foster interoperability among eGovernment services and solutions. We encourage [the Commission] to call for an express endorsement of FRAND.” http://64.14.124.167/country/News%20and%20Events/News%20Archives/enGB/2010/enGB-10072010-endorsement.aspx

vs.

EU to push patent-free eGovernment
Published: 11 October 2010 | Updated: 12 October 2010
The European Union is on the cusp of writing public procurement rules which favour patent- and royalty-free technologies, according to software giants who argue that the rules echo Chinese public procurement laws.

Software giants are worried that the pending European Interoperability Framework (EIF) will give technologies that have open specifications an advantage in public sector bids.

These giants want the European Commission to change the EIF “to ensure that innovators who own patents and other intellectual property (IP) can participate in the procurement of eGovernment services in Europe,” according to a statement by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

The Alliance counts Microsoft, SAP, IBM, Dell and HP among its 80 industry members.

“Because of their positive effect on interoperability, the use of […] open specifications […] has been promoted in many policy statements and is encouraged for European public service delivery,” according to a draft EIF seen by EurActiv.

The BSA alleges that in its current form, the EIF will encourage companies to give away their patents and relinquish any royalties in order to clinch public sector contracts, like providing eGovernment services, for example.

The EIF contains “worrying echoes of Chinese policy,” Francisco Mingorance from the BSA told EurActiv.

The European Committee for Interopable Systems refuted the BSA’s claims and said the EIF does not in any way undermine patent rights or force governments to procure “IP-free” software.

ECIS, which includes IBM, Nokia, Oracle, Red Hat and other companies, said that together its companies have some of the “largest patent portfolios on the planet” and would never do anything to undercut their own intellectual property.

They agreed China does a poor job of protecting IP rights but argued that the EIF is unrelated to that discussion.

“Open standards ensure that software competes on price and innovation, rather than locking in users because they will lose access to their data if they switch to another software package,” said Thomas Vinje, an ECIS spokesman.

“Defining openness does not imply a preference for software that is free of copyright or other intellectual property. On the contrary, it promotes competition, both for open source software and for software on which the owner wants to charge royalties,” Vinje continued.

Chinese government procurement provides privileged access to companies who give away their intellectual property rights to a product.

The row over Chinese public procurement laws recently came to a head when the EU’s trade chief warned the bloc could limit the ability of Chinese companies to bid for public projects unless European companies are given the same access to the Chinese market.

The EIF is due to be adopted by the Commission in the coming weeks and unlike other EU rules, it is not subject to the approval of the European Parliament and the member states. http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-push-patent-free-egovernment-news-498694

Cf. An opinion on the EIF http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/servlets/Doc?id=31940

http://nyissz.hu/blog/10-points-on-the-mandatory-use-of-open-standards-in-hungary/

Update: http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/fsfe-vs-bsa

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http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/september-2010-seeing-like-a-state-a-conversation-with-james-c-scott/

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