It’s not a matter of if you value open source or not, it’s a matter of if you value the best standard or not (best of course being in the eye of beholder). What you’re saying is that you’d prefer an unencumbered, but inferior standard to a superior standard encumbered with associated RAND patents. In some cases, that may be the right approach, in others it may not.

In other words, if you value open source software (which the EC does, as it is seen as a means by which the competitiveness of the European Union’s ICT industry can be improved) it would be best not to adopt standards that discriminate against open source software. Sounds pretty reasonable to me
That does SOUND reasonable. However, it is a complete red herring. It is all in how you define what is open source compatible. Any standard, even those fully encumbered with royalty-bearing patents, is actually open source compatible! Any claim otherwise ignores the reality of the marketplace today.

Matthew, as you well know, enterprise versions of Linux from Red Hat et al almost ALWAYS ship with proprietary code alongside the open source code to enable them to integrate certain protocols and standards. Even the pre-XP OLPC had proprietary components in it. The GPL allows this and every other open source license allows it.

Unfortunately, however, it is the Free Software ideologues that are driving this debate. They want to redefine open source compatible to mean that the standard must be able to implemented in GPL code. Based on their religious convictions about Free Software, they refuse to use proprietary or non-GPL code even when it is allowed by the GPL license.
So, we need to stop confusing the concepts of “Open Source Compatible” with what is “Compatible with the Free Software Religion.”
Mark Blafkin
Association for Competitive Technology

Actually what I am saying is that, because it values open source software, the EC prefers an unencumbered standard to a standard encumbered with associated RAND patents, as is its right.

Of course, if Mark Blafkin is right and there is no problem with encumbered patents and open source, then the statement is even simpler: the EC prefers an unencumbered standard to a standard encumbered with associated RAND patents, as is its right.

Matthew
The Commission certainly has the right to choose whatever policy it thinks is right in the end. It is also our right and the right of our European members to advise them that we believe the policy will not serve the interests of government, citizens, or industry. The Free Software community has been lobbying on this issue for a very long time and it important the Commission here from alternative voices about the potential effects of this policy.
Finally, if the final result of the policy is as balanced as the EC claims in Register article, I don’t think we’ll have a problem with it. However, that was not the impression given during the presentation last week or from the first draft of the report.

Dear Mr. Mark Blafkin,

You statement ignores the reason why the EU is such a proponent of open standard in their given definition. They want government applications and electronic documents to be as available as possible to all citizens. I think this is a premise that even your organization could approve off.

However, this statement implies that the implementation of these standards should not be encumbered by patents. Let’s take take a look at the wording of the EIF report: “The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.” I see two reasons for this part of the report:
- people should not be forced to have to pay for any software using the standard. If this would be the case, there would be a barrier for a sizable percentage of citizens to work with the standard, and thus the government that uses that standard.
- people should have a free choice in the software they choose to access the documents from the government. However, if the standard would not be open in the sense given above, there would be an artificial limitation on the implementation of that standard. This would force out a certain amount of software makers, most notably the Open Source software makers of course, but also small software creators who would have to pay royalty fees for using the standard. This, in it’s own, would also limit the amount of choice the citizens have in software programs for accessing the government documents.

Do understand that such a policy by the EU would only affect any standard adopted by the governments. For any standards or formats adopted by other organizations (e.g. for-profit businesses), there would be no restriction on the formats they choose to use among themselves.

As to your statement that “enterprise versions of Linux [...] almost ALWAYS ship with proprietary code”. Enterprise versions are expensive. Very expensive for normal citizens. Therefore, you should not look at the enterprise versions of Linux but the completely open versions that could be had for free or a small fee. In the fear for being sued over usage of patents, several of the common versions (OpenSUSE and Fedora come to mind) are limited in their standard installation with respect to, e.g., multimedia software (e.g. playing or creating MP3 files). You have to go to external repositories to install these multimedia components and even then, it’s unclear whether this is legal or not.

This is a good example of why the statement given by the EIF on patents is so important. By indicating right from the start that standards used by the government should not carry this uncertainty, anybody in the industry (both open source and proprietary software developers) can implement this standard. This, in it’s turn, greatly promotes a free and competitive software market. And I think this is something your organization can only applaud.