Hi all,
I bounced our definition over to the Execom of the SELF project, and got some interesting feedback. In particular:
c) free from legal or technical clauses that could be construed as limiting its utilisation by any party or business model;
f> The "could be construed as limiting" bit is problematic, because f> of something could be construed as something it is not. I think f> "could limit" is a better alternative.
f> Also, business models themselves are not entities who could use f> software, it's rather parties who use it to support business f> models. What do you think of "any party under any business f> model"?
This seems sensible to me.
d) developed and managed independently of any single vendor in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties;
f> The matter of origin also is rather complex. I see what this is f> meant to limit, but the limit as stated could be f> overreaching. Under this definition, Unix would not be an open f> standard because it was originally dependent on AT&T. I'm not f> entirely sure whether even POSIX would comply, since it depends on f> AT&T's work.
f> This is a tough one. For one, we don't want anybody to dump a ton f> of paper filled with unintelligible gibberish on ISO and call it f> an open standard, even if it is open to participation from now on f> (because no-one would care to participate in a skewed playing f> field).
f> Maybe the origin bit of this clause is unnecessary (the management f> bit is crucial), given the last one, which is the real test of f> whether the specification is readable and has any chance of f> acceptance: [...]
Which may be true. I'm not sure.
So including these comments we'd have:
An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is
a) subject to full public assessment and use without constraints in a manner equally available to all parties;
b) without any components or extensions that have dependencies on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an Open Standard themselves;
c) free from legal or technical clauses that limit its utilisation by any party or in any business model;
d) [developed and] managed independently of any single vendor in a process open to the equal participation of competitors and third parties;
e) available in multiple complete implementations by competing vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to all parties.
Comments?
Regards, Georg