Dear all, A new draft of the National Open Standards Policy (labelled v1.1) is now up for review on the egovstandards.gov.in website.
http://j.mp/crlk1x [pdf] There is also a (new, as far as I'm aware, though labelled v1.1) draft manual for implementation of the policy: http://j.mp/96vFL8 [pdf] Under "Mandatory Characteristics", it states: 4.1.2 The patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard shall be available on a Royalty-Free basis for the life time of the Standard. If such Standards are not found feasible then in the wider public interest, Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (FRAND) or Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND) *with no payment* [emphasis added] could be considered. 4.2 deals with non-availability of appropriate open standards. 4.2 talks of 'interim standards', with a definition provided in Annexure I. Under 4.3 (non-availability of standard meeting functional requirements), the first preference is for an appropriate option (as an interim standard) which has "Specifications as per proven open source reference implementation". Under "Exceptions for Selecting One or More Additional Open Standard in an Area": 5. GoI shall endeavour to adopt Single and Royalty-Free (RF) Open Standard for an Area. However, in view of the sufficient technical justification and in the wider public interest, additional standard(s) in the same domain may be considered by GoI based on the recommendations of the Designated Body. Such standard shall be compatible and bi-directionally interoperable with the already existing selected Standard. There is now a definition of "interim standard": Annexure I (i): Interim Standard: A standard temporarily adopted by relaxing mandatory characteristics, until an appropriate standard is identified, which meets all the mandatory requirements. In the Implementation guidelines: 4.7 All future Request for Proposals (RFPs) of e-Governance projects shall include the guidelines for ensuring compliance to Open Standards as per this Policy. All in all, it seems (after a quick glance) to be mostly unobjectionable. Do others think otherwise? -- Pranesh Prakash Programme Manager Centre for Internet and Society W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283
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