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Red Hat's comments on Draft Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance
Version 1.1 dated May 2010
,----[ Quote ]
| Section 4.1.2 of the policy states, â The
| patent claims necessary to implement the
| Identified Standard shall be available on
| a Royalty-Free basis for the life time of
| the Standard. If such Standards are not
| found feasible then in the wider public
| interest, Fair, Reasonable and Non
| Discriminatory terms and conditions
| (FRAND) or Reasonable and Non
| Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND)
| with no payment could be considered.â
|
| We request that the following statement,
| âIf such Standards are not found feasible
| then in the wider public interest, Fair,
| Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms
| and conditions (FRAND) or Reasonable and
| Non Discriminatory terms and conditions
| (RAND) with no payment could be
| consideredâ be moved to the section 4.3
| which deals with âNon-availability of Open
| Standard which meets all Mandatory
| Characteristics dealing with exceptions.â
| We strongly feel that this sentence is
| completely out of place, especially
| considering that it is currently housed in
| section 4.1 titled, âMandatory
| Characteristics.â
|
| We feel that section 4.1.2 is the heart of
| the Draft Policy and placing an exception
| statement in the very heart of the policy
| will send out wrong and conflicting
| signals. Also, in terms of sequence, the
| RAND/FRAND clause pre-empts the selection
| criteria listed in Section 4.4. It should
| also be noted that standards that are
| RAND/FRAND should be termed as âInterim
| Standardsâ and should NOT be termed as
| âOpen Standards.â
|
| For example, the H.264-encoded Internet
| Video format is currently free to end
| users until at least December 31, 2015.
| Once this period ends, MPEG LA, the
| licensing agency for H.264 may start
| charging royalties. Therefore, H.264 is a
| partially-royalty free standard, but
| cannot be considered an open standard
| because users do not have the freedom to
| encode and decode data and have to adhere
| to complex licensing conditions. Under the
| current wording of Section 4.1.2, H.264
| may qualify as a suitable open standard
| for e-governance but this is clearly
| unacceptable in the long-term. For
| example, if Doordarshan uses H.264 to
| transmit a National Address by the Prime
| Minister of India over the web on 1st
| January, 2016, it may attract royalty that
| â...shall be no more than the economic
| equivalent of royalties payable during the
| same time for free television."
| Therefore, we suggest, once again, that
| this sentence be moved to Section 4.4 and
| be modified to read, "If such Standards
| are not found feasible then in the wider
| public interest, Fair, Reasonable and Non
| Discriminatory terms and conditions
| (FRAND) or Reasonable and Non
| Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND)
| with no payment, AND NO RESTRICTIONS ON
| REUSE, could be considered.â
`----
http://osindia.blogspot.com/2010/06/red-hats-comments-on-draft-policy-on.html
Swift and predictable reactions to WebM
https://lwn.net/Articles/389029/
Google updates WebM licensing
http://www.tectonic.co.za/2010/06/google-updates-webm-licensing/
Recent:
â Standing Up To The Man
,----[ Quote ]
| To be clear, MPEG-LA is a parasite using
| standards bodies as its host, whether they
| want it or not. This page makes it clear
| that the parasite is looking for new
| hosts. Patent reform is now way overdue.
`----
http://webmink.com/2010/06/06/links-for-2010-06-06/
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