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The Friday 2007-06-22 at 08:24 -0300, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >Hash: SHA1 Please, trim your emails of extra unneded lines... > I guess I am implicitly assuming that if it is an ISO certified standard, it > must be open. Not necesarily. In many cases, you have got to pay, and not a little, in order to get a copy of an standard and use it (even patent fees). That may be reason enough for some companies not to adhere to them explicitly. It depends on the organization, I suppose. Some info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization#ISO_document_copyright http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization ... ] Standards can be de facto, which means they are followed for ] convenience, or de jure, which means they are used because of (more or ] less) legally binding contracts and documents. Government agencies often ] have to follow standards issued by official standardization ] organizations. Following such standards can also be a prerequisite for ] doing business on certain markets, with certain companies, or within ] certain consortia. ] ] A standard can be open or proprietary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard ] An Open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has ] various rights to use associated with it. ] ] The terms "open" and "standard" have a wide range of meanings associated ] with their usage. The term "open" is sometimes restricted to ] royalty-free technologies while the term "standard" is sometimes ] restricted to technologies approved by formalized committees that are ] open to participation by all interested parties and operate on a ] consensus basis. ] ] Some definitions of the term "open standard" permit patent holders to ] impose "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalty fees and other ] licensing terms on implementers and/or users of the standard. For ] example, the rules for standards published by the major internationally ] recognized standards bodies such as the ITU, ISO, and IEC permit ] requiring patent licensing fees for implementation. However, the ] definitions of the European Union and Danish government forbid open ] standards to require fees for use. Permitting such license fees is ] controversial, because these tend to forbid implementation as free/open ] source software and discriminate against those who do not hold those ] patents. Many definitions of the term "open standard" specifically ] forbid any such fees. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFGe7oVtTMYHG2NR9URAnfeAJ42L+UFU3+aWytoq4f0RlPb6Ph8GgCfcUCj RwRA/ziMr1U7eggWecmjhT8= =VZWH -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
