Interesting comment about Telephony not based on open standards. How do all the different telephony companies manage to get their networks to interact without having communication protocols based on agreed international standards?[1] How do you expect their customers to use their services if they can't communicate between different company networks.
Open Standards lead to increased econonmic competitiveness: Arguably the largest global economic factor of the last 20 years is the Internet, which is built upon open standards published by the IETF as RFCs*. Without these documents the explosion in Internet based commerce we've seen would have been improbable. Have you heard of the silo'd services provided by Compuserve, AOL, et al?[2] Their business model failed as soon as the TCP/IP open standards underlying the Internet were accepted by the wider community. So, the deep economic implications of open standards leads to greater flow of ideas, money and commerce; benefiting businesses and consumers. C [1] http://www.itu.int [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL * OK, RFCs are technically recommendations rather than standards, but the almost universal acceptance of them makes them defacto open standards. -----Original Message----- From: Alun Rowe <[email protected]> Reply-to: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [backstage] Fwd: [Autonomo.us] Skype, out? Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:12:31 +0100 No it’s not confusion. Unfortunately one leads to the other. Open standards whilst highly beneficial in some fields eg Web Standards can also be highly uncompetitive in others eg Telephony. Telephony is all about the quality of the service you receive so the standard IS the product. Websites are about content so the standard is merely a conduit for the product. Preaching open standards is fine AS LONG as you understand the deep economic issues behind them On 04/08/2009 08:03, "Brian Butterworth" <[email protected]> wrote: 2009/8/4 Alun Rowe <[email protected]> The problem with a 'free digital society' is that people need salaries. ah, the old confusion of gratis and libre. Ask the music/film industry what they think. I love the idea of utopia but we all know that unicorns don't exist, right? On 3 Aug 2009, at 20:14, "Dave Crossland" <[email protected]> wrote: Hi, What about the case for a free digital society? Regards, Dave On 3 Aug 2009, 6:36 PM, "Alun Rowe" < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> wrote: No doubt some palms will be crossed with silver (or equity). The business case for open standards has to be thought through ingreat depth before embracing it. Also Skypes network has been around for a longtime! On 3 Aug 2009, at 17:10, "Dave Crossland" < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> wrote: > Proprietary software and centtalised network services strike again... > > Regards, Dave >> >> ----... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
