On Wed, 2006-07-19 at 21:18 +0300, Yavor Doganov wrote:
What's wrong with "free standard"? I always use this term and people seem to understand clearly what it means.
I strongly agree with this. A standard is free if it is not patent uncumbered. There is no chance of making the mistake between free as in freedom and free as in gratis, as I see no way you can ask money for the implementation of the standard without patents anyway. At most you can use copyright to protect the original specification, but nobody can prevent you to write another description of the standard and distribute it for free or for a fee.
Free standard convey the very notion of being free to implement such standard. I don't see any better wording than Free Standard. Nobody is going to think they cannot charge you money for the book that describes it, there's no chance of misunderstanding that unless you want to do it on purpose..
And no, I don't think it is acceptable that someone can't write it's own version of the specification if he wants to nor I find it acceptable that to implement such standard you are required to buy the official specification if you don't want to.
Simo.