Toby is right that the original national standards bodies and ISO were based on
the idea that standards are bound publications on paper, and they are organized
as publication houses that get their revenues by selling the documents (for
about the same prices as university textbooks). Since about 20 years ago, that
business model has become less and less viable, simply because it is not
necessary to print the standards on paper. In information technology more so
than other industries, publications are downloaded PDF. That avoids the need
for a physical publishing plant and the corresponding materials flows -- paper,
ink, type, etc. -- all of which created capital and operating expenses that
required a more typical business model. The declining viability of that model
is a problem for all publishing houses, not just the standards publishers, but
the standards organizations have their business model written into their
charters. It is not easy to change. (01)
Publishers, however, have always understood copyright and intellectual property
and sought to protect it. It is the fledgeling IT publication organizations
who have had to learn the hard way about protecting intellectual property. I
think you will find that some "old line standards groups", like EIA and ISA and
ASME and ASHRAE and IEEE and SME and so on have a lot more experience with the
publication of industry standards and the related intellectual property
controls. Online publication has just made it a lot easier for the ignorant
and the malicious to exploit breaches of copyright and intellectual property
rights, to the advantage of the exploiter and the disadvantage of the victim.
So let us not wax too exuberant over the fact that some of the IT world has
finally figured out how to control part of the collateral damage inflicted by
the wonder/monster we have unleashed. (02)
Like OASIS, every one of these consortium standards organizations -- W3C, OMG,
OAG, IFC, HL7, etc. -- has been reworking its intellectual property and
licensing rules over the last 3 years, and will doubtless continue to do so for
a while. We are, as an industry, trying to learn how to manage online
publication and open process authorship. Some have tried to learn from the
publishing houses; others still believe themselves to be revolutionaries. Some
endeavor to manage their standards suites; others are simply new model
publishing companies for arbitrary special interest groups. And that
difference affects their IP rules as well. (03)
A further observation about the UNECE reference: UNECE has been publishing the
EDIFACT dictionaries for 20 years, and EDIFACT was a functional part of
international trade before XML was invented. The specifications have been
downloadable since at least 1996 in plain text, and since 2000 in HTML. The
standard data encoding follows a UNECE spec published by ISO as ISO 9735. 90%
of electronic trade messages are EDIFACT messages; about 10% now use the XML
versions of the messages (because software systems supporting the long-standing
standard have been in use since the 1990s). The published codes have been a
part of the dictionaries since the beginning. The XML version has changed
nothing but the ability to attract implementations by the people who are now
entering the software market. Changing message forms is pure cost. And OBTW,
the XML messages tend to need about 6 times as many bits to carry the same
information. The advantage of XML is that you can hire programmers who know
how to manipulate XML using libraries they are familiar with, and they don't
have to learn how to use the older libraries for EDI exchange and couple them
to "cloud services" (or whatever the buzzword of the year is). (04)
-Ed (05)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Work: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Mobile: +1 240-672-5800 (06)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (07)
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Considine, Toby
(Campus Services IT)
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 6:12 PM
To: 'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Hackathon: BACnet Ontology (08)
Deborah nails it. (09)
The old-line standards groups charge for access. Even if you get the document,
the IP may have questionable provenance. (010)
Sometimes some agencies have explicitly made some standards work public. Look
to what UN-CEFACT has done with country and currency codes. (011)
http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/codes_index.html (012)
They have produced XML Schemas (XSD) that are freely downloadable, freely
accessible, and so have increased rather then decreased trade. (013)
Some standards are developed from scratch to be used freely by all. UBL
(Universal Business Language) does what this thread suggests and every bit of
it is freely usable. (014)
One problem is the revenue model. Standards groups who get their revenues from
specifications are not going to want to solve IP issues. If the revenue model
is tied to per-page charges, you can expect wordy documents with lots of
pictures. (015)
Sometimes groups produce where the IP is only that "No member will sue you if
you are a member"-if only they would state it so succinctly. This means that
fewer review the specification, fewer comment, and the specification is often
harder to work with. (016)
I like to work in OASIS (www.oasis-open.org) because its products are generally
free to use, free to download, free to build derivative products. The IP gate
is on the contribution, rather than the use. Every email, posting, and proposal
is publicly visible, which cuts through a lot of delays. Building-based
semantics in OASIS is hard to come by. (017)
tc
________________________________________
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." -- Pablo Picasso
________________________________________
Toby Considine
Chair, OASIS oBIX TC
Editor, OASIS EMIX, Energy Interoperation
Campus Services Information Technology
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC
Email: Toby.Considine@ unc.edu
Phone: (919)962-9073
http://www.oasis-open.org
http://www.NewDaedalus.com (018)
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of MacPherson,
Deborah
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 5:56 PM
To: Ontology Summit 2013 discussion
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Hackathon: BACnet Ontology (019)
Somewhere in this discussion is a problem that is the essence of what has been
holding up progress in the facilities domain. (020)
There are ways to publish technical requirements or test for conformance online
for free, and pay (even substantially) to participate in the working groups or
have voting privileges. For example OGC, W3C. (021)
I can even see being able to own a part name or number within a larger
communication machine that could be mapped to a generic form for broader
exchange purposes. For example "13-57 13 15 Dining and Drinking Spaces" versus
"The Sand Bar and Grille" (022)
Depending on the domain, or need for cross disciplinary discussion, many on the
IP-protected side have no interest in supporting, or will even actively stops
progress, on a common model. There is also the problem of failed common models
that do not work, will not accommodate different object definitions - from
software to software or industry model to industry model - without loss of data
or functionality. Bentley systems has stepped forward in this white paper on
the IFC model to say actually - the emperor has no clothes on. See pages 6 and
7 "Round Tripping" (023)
For some reason I think ontologies might be a way these IP-With-Open problems
might be fixed but maybe I am wrong or wishing for too much. (024)
DEBORAH MACPHERSON
Specifications and Research (025)
Cannon Design
3030 Clarendon Blvd.
Suite 500
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone: 703.907.2353
Direct Dial: 2353 (026)
dmacpherson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cannondesign.com
Skype debmacp (027)
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Simon Spero
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 5:25 PM
To: Ontology Summit 2013 discussion
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] Hackathon: BACnet Ontology (028)
On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 11:53 AM, Peter R. Benson <Peter.Benson@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Deborah, IP is a real issue. We designed the eOTD to try to resolve some of
these issues. In a dictionary the IP resides in the representation but also
in the identifiers or codes as these are always copyright. (029)
That is not entirely clear; see e.g. SOUTHCO, INC v. KANEBRIDGE CORPORATION (
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/021243pe.pdf ), where part numbers were
found to be not protected (but see also how Alito takes care to distinguish
Delta Dental ) (030)
Simon (031)
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