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Standards DO have owners
Whenever someone calls something open, confusion may ensue.
From the FAQ for OpenReader:
"No one company owns the OpenReader format, just as no one 'owns' HTML, the language of the Web"
But Wikipedia says (and I believe):
"HTML is now an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). Later HTML specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)"
Standards, even the most open ones, are owned by somebody, or something, even if it's a standards body. The OpenReader organization needs to be more explicit about who owns its own specification and how it can be used. My suggestion: Put OpenReader out under a Creative Commons license. It's worked for RSS 2.0.
Technorati tag: OpenReader
Posted on December 22, 2005 at 10:00 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Your short piece is a good reminder that it matters what standards body defines a standard. Some have rules that keep things more open than others. These rules can range from whether companies are allowed to submit standards encumbered by patents, to whether the standards are published at high cost that makes them hard for the public to examine.
Posted by: Andy Oram at Dec 22, 2005 11:55:22 AM
