On Wed, 2006-07-19 at 10:02 +0200, Stefano Maffulli wrote:
- does it make sense to introduce in the Free Software community a new
term that is non-controversial and more precise than the generic 'open standard'?
There is an ongoing debate over what constitutes an "open standard", see for example the definitions that ETSI have proposed to Global Standards Collaboration (GSC):
"An open standard is developed, approved, and maintained, by a collaborative, transparent and consensus-based process, open to all materially affected and interested parties.
"The standard is subject to FRAND Intellectual Property Right (IPR) policies which do not mandate, but may permit, at the option of the IPR holder, licensing essential intellectual property without compensation.
"The standard is published and made available to the general public under reasonable terms (including for reasonable fee or for free)."
This matches closely the definition of "open standard" used in telecommunications and electronics. It doesn't particularly match what you're talking about. It seems to make sense to me, then, that "open standard" is not a sufficient term.
- if yes, what would that term be?
Probably "royalty free standard". While it doesn't encapsulate all the problems in a single name, it's already a known phrase, and there will always be new problems in the future. If you can use the standard without having to pay a fee, it seems to me that it would be difficult to make the standard incompatible with free software.
Cheers,
Alex.