Hi all,
today I moderated the first panel at the standards edge conference here in Rio prior to the Internet Governance Forum. The topic Certified Open came up a couple of times along the day, and the 40 leaflets I put on the table were gone by the end of the day. I assume that Benoit Müller of the BSA and Nicos L. Tsilas, Senior Director IP & Interoperability Policy, Government and Industry Affairs at Microsoft both took one.
Generally the feedback was very positive, in particular Laura DeNardis From Yale Law School also was quite interested, as she's working in the field of standards policy.
Overall reception was very positive, though.
The only disconcerting feedback was from Carl F. Cargill, Director of Corporate Standards at Sun Microsystems. He was generally in favor, but said that we're likely to be taken down by legal action and that it took him about 100k EUR to figure out the problem.
He described it as one related to burden of proof issues which are on Certified Open when if we were being sued by a vendor for having caused damage to their product sales by giving biased evaluation or having had a biased certification -- and it would be on us to prove that there was no bias.
Carl described the issue as US centric, but it seems we should have a look at this and potentially seek legal input on the issue.
Regards, Georg
Thanks - yes we do need to have a relook at this, but my no-legal view would be that since they are making the assessment themselves it would be difficult to show an error on our part. This was the advice of our counsel at the time. Carl is proving to be a real problem generally at the moment. Without breaking confidentiality I can't say too much but some of his colleagues in SUn are less than happy with him at present. I had a clash with him over their OOXML comments at ANSI in the UK, and had quite a 'dialogue' with him re Open Standards. Work on him nicely if you can. Susie seems more onside, as do her colleagues this side of the water inc Simon Phipps..
Can also report positive feedback from the Uk when I announced at the OS Summit. Plenty of interest and some follow up - with suppliers present.
Rgds G ----- Original Message ----- From: "Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org To: board@certifiedopen.com Cc: "WILLIAM COUSINS" basil.cousins@openforumeurope.org Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 2:36 AM Subject: First feedback to Certified Open @ the Bolin Group Standards EdgeConference
Certified Open Board mailing list board@certifiedopen.com https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/co-board
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On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:16:15 -0000 "Graham Taylor" graham@openforumeurope.org wrote:
gt> Thanks - yes we do need to have a relook at this, but my no-legal gt> view would be that since they are making the assessment themselves gt> it would be difficult to show an error on our part. This was the gt> advice of our counsel at the time.
Agreed.
It may be relevant for the peer review process and the resolution procedure, though. So I think we should study this in that regards.
gt> Carl is proving to be a real problem generally at the moment. gt> Without breaking confidentiality I can't say too much but some of gt> his colleagues in SUn are less than happy with him at present.
Thanks for that information, quite interesting.
gt> I had a clash with him over their OOXML comments at ANSI in the UK, gt> and had quite a 'dialogue' with him re Open Standards. Work on him gt> nicely if you can.
Only saw him on Sunday, but will do so if I see him again.
gt> Susie seems more onside, as do her colleagues this side of the gt> water inc Simon Phipps..
Full ack on Susie. She's very cool.
Simon appears to have been demoted inside Sun, unfortunately. This does not necessarily make me happy.
gt> Can also report positive feedback from the Uk when I announced at gt> the OS Summit. Plenty of interest and some follow up - with gt> suppliers present.
Excellent.
Best regards, Georg