On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 05:53:16AM +0100, Lester Caine wrote: > >You must not mean a "M$" Office Open XML document since it is of course > >and open standard. *shrug* > > Well since M$ do not have any software that actually produces OOXML > documents yet .... At least not to the format submitted to ISO ;) > The main problem THERE of cause is that ISO standards are not free and open > anyway. HOW much does a copy cost :)
Well, free-as-in-speech does not have to imply free-as-in-beer. Also, some ISO standards *are* available gratis/free (such as WMS, which also is both libre/free and gratis/free available from OGC); I can usually find gratis/free versions of ISO "open standards" by searching the web for the DIS (draft) version, and my rights to implement and discuss them remains gratis/free. Whether the ISO approach is appropriate or successful - either at helping businesses or promoting "best practise" - is definitely another, awkward question :) Another problem here is talking as if we agree on what a "free and open" standard is. Even http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition does not clearly, to my reading, differentiate between libre/free and gratis/free. http://blog.okfn.org/2008/05/14/dispatches-from-digistan/ elaborates on this and on their idea of "openness metrics", and on a draft "open format definition" which some OSGeo members have contributed to - though clearly Digistan's plans go a lot further than formats. As for "force and exclude", the Digistan definition does not go much further than the European Commission have already gone, cf http://www.openstandards.eu/definition The question then becomes more one about decision-making and planning processes for "non-profit organisations", and how to build models that will prevent inter-organisation "stewards" from tending to serve their own interests rather than those of wider business and technical communities. Cool, OSGeo has collectively to think about this as well! jo -- _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss