My comments on the article: "What is necessary is a policy that ensures that the system evolves in a way that allows our own people to participate and enjoy the fruits of their own innovation."
If "people" really means people, the masses in this country, then the GOI will have to enforce copy left license to all outputs of IT production (software/hardware). Because other wise the "I.P" rights remain only with a section( .01% ?? ) of "people" who owns the means of production. These "people" are allready ganged up as "NASSCOMM". NASSCOMM being chiefly the employers association in IT. How can NASSCOMM consult with some of its members who appreciate commons which in turn leads to collective, inclusive ownership over "fruits of their own innovation". "Why are we trying to short-circuit the process in one of the largest markets for such technologies?" This is always seen on the part of the above explained class of "people" whenever the governments anywhere in the world intervene to protect the interests of real people, the monopolies gang up and go crazy reminding the governments that their country is just a huge markets and its a free market at that and its a self correcting self stabilizing one too, with saints from Harvards to look after it (nice bullshit as always). "This will not only help the IT sector's revenue growth, it will also create a labour force that is skilled in tackling local IT problems. " There always have to be a labour force (read cheap labour force). How else is exploitation possible! "This is inconsistent with our approach to the drugs and pharma IPR policy that was so vehemently opposed by the Left." The left is always a problem you see... "They had no knowledge about what India and the world would be like in future. Trying to decide on how things should evolve is fundamentally flawed. " When the entire world is at least talking of Keynes we have someone preaching Laissez-faire. " The evolution of a good standard should be left to the market place not to experts, regardless of how brilliant they are. " Haven't these neo-liberal junkies had enough. screwing up real economies with their free market crap? This article is not about open standards in policy, its about crying foul of govt intervention in Laissez faire capitalist vision of the author. On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 1:49 PM, jtd<[email protected]> wrote: > The author needs an education in the need and importance of standards and the > pitfalls and reasons for the existence of multiple standards. > Firstly standards do not stifle innovation or the ability to earn. In fact it > allows much wider participation and hence much more innovation and creation > of wealth. Nothing in a standard prevents multiple implementations and > thereby innovation, effeciency and consequent creation of wealth. > The above is true only if the standard is available freely and without > patent / copyright encumberances, for use and implementation. Thus if the > standards are not open and unencumbered, the standard will actually stifle > innovation and wealth creation. Quite the opposite result of what the author > states. The author is confusing wealth hoarding for a microscopic miniority > with wealth creation for the majority > > Secondly multiple standards came into existence PRIOR to or in parallel with > the standards process, primarily to carve out niche markets. In most cases > geographically isolated regions had set a particular standard and subsequent > globalisation forced the use of multiple standards. In every case of multiple > standards, the end user bears the hughe costs of supporting interoperability > (which the author convienently bandys about without understanding the > implications) by having to purchase additional goods and or services. > Some examples: PAL /SECAM /NTSC tv broadcast systems. Every television set had > to incur additional costs to incorporate circuitry which they rarely used. > Every broadcaster had to incur costs converting feeds from one format to the > other. > The Indian railways will be spending a whopping Rs.16500 Cr (and most likely a > substantially higher amount) for converting 18000Km of narrow and meter gauge > lines to broad gauge in the next few years. This is excluding the costs of > 7000 odd Km already converted since 1992. They need to do so to minmise their > costs and provide seamless services. Most readers will be very familiar with > the hassle of transiting from Broad gauge to meter gauge in the course of > their travels. > > The existence of multiple standards should be viewed as a failure of the > standardisation process and a burden on the public, instead of being > justified on grounds of innovation,creation of wealth and other lame reasons. > > There are several other technical reasons (software bitrot, vast volume of > data, life times of data, authenticity, security etc), that are even more > pressing in case of egovernance, which will absolutely mandate single, open > and unecumbered standards. But that would require a series of articles. > > These suggestions for multiple standards have suddenly sprung up after NASSCOM > and MAIT (without consulting their members) have proposed such changes. > Several members of NASSCOM have spoken strongly against NASSCOM's statement. > > A newspaper of your standing would do well to whet such factually wrong > articles before publishing. > > > > -- > Rgds > JTD > _______________________________________________ > network mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in > _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
