Comments on: Presidential commission will recommend backing open source path http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=192 examining transformative technology Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:23:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: MarkGubrud http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=192#comment-350 MarkGubrud Wed, 30 Aug 2000 00:16:06 +0000 http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=192#comment-350 <p><strong>Standards!</strong></p> <p>The best thing the government could do for open source is to encourage reduction of the number of incompatible systems and adoption of a limited number of well-defined standards - yes, at the expense of getting the latest ill-thought-out incremental innovation on the market ahead of the competition.<br /> <br /> Of course, it is going to be unacceptable for the government to impose standards by force, or for bureacrats to pick winners and losers. But, just as Linus Torvalds was able to create a powerful standard by force of having been there first, the government could catalyze the creation of industrywide standards by announcing that official standards (NIST?) WILL be posted, and assembling technical panels from industry, academia and professionals which would hammer them out.<br /> <br /> There would be a powerful incentive for small- to medium-size companies to comply with such standards. Perhaps it would also be wise to bow, on occasion, to the standards-setting power of monopolists, but engaging them in the definition of open standards would be preferable to the present system in which secrecy is maintained and incompatibility deliberately introduced by the biggest players in order to frustrate competition.<br /> <br /> Updates should be issued at regular intervals, not so infrequent as to encourage wildcatting nor so frequent as to result in the same cacophony and headaches that confront computer users today. I'd like to see new versions of major standards coming out every two years, but if that would be too infrequent, perhaps x.1 versions could be released on off-years.<br /> <br /> I'm a utopian, I know.</p> Standards!

The best thing the government could do for open source is to encourage reduction of the number of incompatible systems and adoption of a limited number of well-defined standards – yes, at the expense of getting the latest ill-thought-out incremental innovation on the market ahead of the competition.

Of course, it is going to be unacceptable for the government to impose standards by force, or for bureacrats to pick winners and losers. But, just as Linus Torvalds was able to create a powerful standard by force of having been there first, the government could catalyze the creation of industrywide standards by announcing that official standards (NIST?) WILL be posted, and assembling technical panels from industry, academia and professionals which would hammer them out.

There would be a powerful incentive for small- to medium-size companies to comply with such standards. Perhaps it would also be wise to bow, on occasion, to the standards-setting power of monopolists, but engaging them in the definition of open standards would be preferable to the present system in which secrecy is maintained and incompatibility deliberately introduced by the biggest players in order to frustrate competition.

Updates should be issued at regular intervals, not so infrequent as to encourage wildcatting nor so frequent as to result in the same cacophony and headaches that confront computer users today. I'd like to see new versions of major standards coming out every two years, but if that would be too infrequent, perhaps x.1 versions could be released on off-years.

I'm a utopian, I know.

]]> By: BryanBruns http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=192#comment-349 BryanBruns Mon, 28 Aug 2000 12:02:59 +0000 http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=192#comment-349 <p><strong>The sooner the better</strong></p> <p>Good article. I hope the government follows through.</p> <p>One minor correction. The discussion of licensing is clear, but omits the case of licenses such as BSD, X11, MIT, and Python which are open source (by the Open Source Definition at <a href="http://www.opensource.org">www.opensource.org</a>) but don't require disclosing modifications. Those licenses basically let you do whatever you want with the code as long as you give credit to the originator.</p> <p>Next, perhaps such a commision could work on the patent system.</p> The sooner the better

Good article. I hope the government follows through.

One minor correction. The discussion of licensing is clear, but omits the case of licenses such as BSD, X11, MIT, and Python which are open source (by the Open Source Definition at http://www.opensource.org) but don't require disclosing modifications. Those licenses basically let you do whatever you want with the code as long as you give credit to the originator.

Next, perhaps such a commision could work on the patent system.

]]>