Against my better judgement, I decided to engage on a couple of recent posts/articles attacking our criticism (and that of BSA) of the European Interoperability Framework(EIF). The conversations have been interesting, to say the least. Our statement has been covered by the Matt Asay’s Open Road Blog @ CNET, 451 Group’s Open Chaos Blog, Heise Online, The Register, IP Watch, and the Intellectual Asset Management Blog.
I wound up writing a lot on the Open Chaos Blog and CNET blog over the weekend on this issue (Even Glyn Moody noticed my loquaciousness over in his little corner of the blogosphere), so I will try to turn some of the key ideas into separate blog post this week. In the meantime, I’ll republish my reply to Matt Asay’s assertion that the criticism of the EIF is based on dislike of “the European Commission’s increasing interest in open source and open standards to deliver software interoperability.”
Matt, As a long time reader, I know you’re too smart and usually too intellectually honest to make such a disingenuous argument. I hope it is merely a misunderstanding based on reading too many reactionary accounts, rather than an attempt to simply gain a few open source cred points by bashing on Microsoft and BSA.
I can’t speak for the BSA or MIcrosoft, but we at ACT believe that the EIF (as written in the first draft and as explained during last week’s conference) is simply ill-formed policy. When looked at openly and rationally, I’m sure that we can find a lot of common ground here.
This is not a battle against the use of open standards or open source. We at ACT, at least, are not against either (despite what you may have heard from those who wish to simply dismiss us).
We are, however, about promoting reasonable public policy that leads toward the best solutions for citizens, governments, and the software industry writ large. The way this policy has been written and talked about thus far (with the possible exception of the EC’s comments to the Register), suggest that it is not good policy.
First, making the openness of a standard a criteria by which to base procurement decisions is a GREAT idea. Making it the ONLY criteria, or a litmus test, can lead to bad decisions. One of our member companies, a small French software firm, created the file format for your beloved Amazon Kindle (they eventually sold to Amazon). Small firms rarely have the resources to push their technologies through a standards body the IBM and Microsoft can. Even Ogg Vorbis, which is not an international standard, may be left out of the mix. Just because they don’t have that power, does it mean their technology shouldn’t even be considered – even when it is the best option?
Second, the real crux of the problem with the EIF is that they have redefined the concept of open standards based on a lot of lobbying by Free Software ideologues. As you well know, the definition of “open standards” used by the majority of the world’s standards bodies INCLUDES the concept of RAND licenses. The EIF excludes any standards that require royalty payments of any kind or include any restrictions on use/redistribution. This is designed to meet the Free Software community’s demand that EVERYTHING be implementable in GPL code. However, these requirements are both problematic and completely unnecessary.
It is problematic because so many of the world’s most commonly used technologies are based on standards that do not meet the EIF’s test. GSM, WiFi, MP3, Bluetooth, DVDs, etc., etc, etc. Does forcing Europe’s government to find completely new technologies/standards really serve the need of IMPROVING interoperability for the purposes of governments and its citizens? I doubt it. And, if standards processes remove all possibility for royalties of any kind, companies will be much less likely to bring their best innovations to the table, and the standards themselves will suffer.
It is unnecessary because Open Source software plays perfectly well with RAND-based open standards and EVEN proprietary standards. As someone who is more of an Open Source pragmatist rather than a Free Software zealot, you’re well aware that most enterprise class versions of Linux include proprietary components or simply non-GPL components in order to implement certain interoperability protocols. And, they work well!
There is no need to force royalty free, restriction free standards in order to promote open source software. Yet, this misconception is fueling this policy. These are the issues that need to be taken into consideration as part of any rational policy discussion.
Yet, some want to treat these open standards policies as a religious issues that cannot be debated on the merits. Anyone that offers any criticism must be silenced or attacked personally/professionally. That is not the kind of democratic decision making process that benefits the people. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like the kind of politics that Europe and even now my fellow Americans are truly sick of.
I’m still hopeful that truly open discussions about standards and interoperability policies will happen because for every Glyn Moody out there, there is someone like Eric who commented on the 451 Blog.