How To Annoy…

How do you raise the ire of a global monopolistic mega-corporation with proprietary tendencies? By telling it that it is a global monopolistic mega-corporation with proprietary tendencies. Or at least telling it that parts of its software solutions are not ‘open’ enough to meet your state’s standards for data formats. That’s what has happened in Massachusetts. On the surface, the State’s position is rather straightforward: The State should not be publishing its material in formats that limit the citizens’ ability to use it. Under the surface, this has opened many different cans of worms.

One can of worms considers what is meant by an ‘open standard’. Is it open just because the developer says it’s open? Clearly, no. Is it open if the standard is published but its use and future are tied up by a single company’s license requirements? Maybe, depending on the license. Is it open because it is published and the developer has dropped all claim to it even if only one company supports it? Technically, yes, but operationally, no. Is it open if published, unclaimed, and widely used? Yes.

Another can of worms considers what sort of license an ‘open standard’ could have. A license makes a claim over an intellectual property (in this case). A license can restrict you to only use the property for purposes set by the license grantor after acknowledging the ownership and paying the substantial fee. That is clearly a proprietary stand. Or the license can allow you to use, modify, or communicate the matter in whatever way you wish as long as you don’t try to impose your own license over the property. Such bizarre preemptive licenses are common in open standards.

Three things are clear:

1. Massachusetts has issued another ’shot heard around the world’ whether it intended to or not. That much is crystal clear in the public comments collected by the State.

2. Microsoft is learning that in a game of brinksmanship, sometimes the brinks win. It may claim that it was blindsided by shifting definitions and smiling bureaucrats, but this is, after all, politics.
3. Sun has worked out a license that counters everything a license was intended to do. And the result is clearly an open standard by anyone’s definition.

Public disclaimers: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. I do ‘own’ some licensed software and if you are a global monopolistic mega-corporation, you will find that your own online systems confirm that.

[Craig E. Pepmiller]

[tags]microsoft,sun,massachusetts,open standards,corporate law[/tags]