Sunday December 04, 2005 Linking Standards and Open Source
Maybe it's just that I'm switched on to the topic, but a theme seemed to jump out at me from my reading over the weekend. Let's review my reading list first:
-
It seems that Microsoft's "shared source" apologist Jason Matusow has
been rewarded with a promotion - I'm assuming that's how to read his
blog entry, anyway. Now, I'm no fan of that particular Microsoft
programme as I think it's role in life is to confuse the casual
observer into thinking that restrictive, controlling licensing
practices are part of a continuum with true FL/OSS licensing
practices. But Jason is charming, eloquent, persuasive, smart and
personable and deserves a reward for gleefully entering the lion's den
time after time and I wish him well in his new assignment in their
corporate standards department. In his posting, Jason says:
If you believe IBM when the say open source is open standards is open source is open standards is open source is…then I guess I’ll be doing much of the same work I have been. Or, if you look at it more closely…but that will be coming in future blogs.
That linking of open source and open standards started me thinking. -
Microsoft's corporate standards department comes under fire from my
colleague Peter Korn. Peter wants to know
why Microsoft won't join existing standards efforts. Peter's no
fool - he understands why they won't join in with OASIS OpenDocument.
His frustration is with their assertion that they are about to start a
standards effort around accessibility. Peter says:
[the system] Microsoft is proposing everyone standardize on isn't shipping yet. The OS it is to be part of isn't shipping yet. No shipping applications support it. No assistive technologies support it. This not-yet-shipping code only runs on one platform (pre-release Windows; not Macintosh, not UNIX). And unlike the GNOME accessibility architecture, UI Automation wasn't developed in an open process where any interested expert could take part - it was developed entirely by one company, and only a handful of folks who had to sign Microsoft Non-disclosure agreements could even see advance copies of it (and even then, weren't allowed to contribute their code to it).
As one of the key contributors to an actual cross-corporate accessibility initiative, Peter is I think justly frustrated and outraged. - A group in France is proposing a new law to make dissemination of software with a data transfer ability illegal unless it supports DRM and watermarking, which will incidentally also effectively outlaw open source licensing for software. They are clearly aware of the treachery they are enacting as, instead of promoting proper debate on either subject, the technique that gave the US its national ID card scheme is being used - a last-minute amendment to a relatively unrelated law. Surely the politicians invovled can sense that the mere use of such a tactic implicates the resulting legislation as abusive? The group behind it all? An unholy alliance of media and software lobbyists representing big international corporations.
Joining the Dots
What do all these have in common? Well, it strikes me that the most powerful weapons against actual freedom are in fact the mechanisms society has previously put in place to defend or create freedom in an earlier age.
- Open standards started as a mechanism for creating a level playing field in markets, to neutralise monopolists. I've seen the corporate players of the standards game in action at first hand, and it's changed into a mechanism to reinforce the market power of the powerful and lock out the newcomer.
- Then we see the democratic process abused to re-inforce the position of the monopolist, in the name of 'law', with the interests of the individual citizen almost forgotten in the interplay of corporate lobbyists.
- Patents, which started as a social contract to enrich the shared knowledge of society, are now the assumed right of corporations, with the social dimension forgotten.
Dystopian? Well, yes - it boils down to the observation that creating any system creates with it the game that will abuse it. But this seems to me to be at the heart of the relation Jason questioned.
Yes, Jason, open source and open standards are linked in two ways. First, the most freedom for the most people is created with truly open standards implemented in truly open communities under truly open licenses. But second, open standards have been successfully subverted by monopolists. How long can open source escape a similar fate? Please tell me that's not your new job.
