Well, Klaus, when an organization experiences declining membership, and when it is a membership dues-revenue based organization, and another substantial portion of its revenue comes from selling its work product, one can begin to understand the desperate effort to find other revenue sources.
Almost every other ANSI-accredited SDO, non-ANSI accredited SDOs like W3C, OASIS, IETF, and other industry-sector specific organizations (e.g., CAQH/CORE) almost always make their specifications and guides publicly available at no cost. After all, isnt the goal to facilitate electronic data interchange, electronic commerce, etc. rather than selling standards and IGs? Unfortunately, X12 and DISA are in a double blind: membership is declining, the mix of current member types and sizes results in less membership dues revenue, and fewer organizations are buying the standards. Im not saying Im in favor of the proposed IPR policy, just trying to illuminate the drivers of such a policy. Rachel Rachel Foerster & Associates Ltd 39432 North Avenue Beach Park, IL 60099 Voice: 847-872-8070 Fax: 847-589-8081 email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.rfa-edi.com/> www.rfa-edi.com From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Klaus-Dieter Naujok Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 5:54 PM To: EDI-L Subject: Re: [EDI-L] EDI documentation / spec software Based on the exchange between Bob Scheuermann and Doug Anderson: Bob: If I understand this correctly, I am in copyright violation if I manually create an implementation guideline for any transaction set without buying some table data from someone? Doug: You are incorrect, unless you are selling that implementation guide. Bob: I'm not selling, just creating for distribution to trading partners. So in that case there is no IP/copyright issue? Doug: Yes, that is my understanding. ... and Mike's earlier comment: "the intention of the policy was discussed as being targeted primarily at EDI software vendors and service providers who profit from DISA IPR" ... it would be OK to create generic implementation guides for all X12 transactions, à la UN/EDIFACT, under an open source project and publish them as an "Open Source" product without being in violation of the IPR policy and having to pay license fees. This would allow providers to include/use the data from the Open Source project in their applications/services and only charge for their added value (the rest of their product offering), a valid common practice by many commercial software vendors that include open source in compliance with the open source license. Something worthwhile to look into should DISA/X12 go ahead with their new licensing program. I find X12/DISA's action as rather backward thinking as other B2B organizations do exactly the opposite by publishing their EDI/XML structured documents freely on the internet for downloading without any license fees. Klaus [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
