What’s happening in the world of consortia, standards,
and open source software
The Standards Blog tracks and explains the way standards and open source software impact business, society, and the future. This site is hosted by Gesmer Updegrove LLP, a technology law firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. GU is an internationally recognized leader in creating and representing the organizations that create and promote standards and open source software. The opinions expressed in The Standards Blog are those of the authors alone, and not necessarily those of GU. Please see the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for this site, which appear here. You can find a summary of our services here. To learn how GU can help you, contact: Andrew Updegrove
Standards wars have been around for a very long time, and with a real (if not an admirable) reason: if you can successfully set a de facto standard around your patented technology, you can make a lot of money. But when that happens, someone often loses -- big. Just ask Topsy or Hayden.
In our June interview with Tim Berners-Lee, he predicted that the initial "Killer App" for the Semantic Web (like the original Web) might be corporate use on intranets. Guess what kind of tool Fujitsu just announced?
For those of you who were reading the entries below and/or those posted by David Berlind at ZDnet on the intersection of open source and open standards, as reflected in the contretemps at Apache over WS-Security, here are a few follow on items to check out.
After much anticipation, the Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance has been delivered to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. The much-awaited report has attracted great attention, due to its potential to threaten the hegemony of US based ICANN, the keeper of the root directory to the Internet. But instead of making such a recommendation, the report offers...four alternatives to choose from.
As with many things (including the Web), semantics have a lot to do with dialogue, or how you connect the points made on, and in the Web, as it were. So how is a demand consistent with the concept of "open standards?"
The debate continues over how long it should take for open source and open standards to become reconciled (and the right way to get there) with a new Berlind post over at ZDNet Blogs synthesizing (well, that's probably not the right word) my comments and Larry Rosen's.
David Berlind over at ZDNet Blogs has picked up on my Apache/WS-Security post of a few days ago and quoted me extensively on why I think that Microsoft will play ball with Apache. Two reactions:...
Over at ZDNet there's a fast and furious thread running, beginning with a post by David Berlind called “Apache Falls Victim to OASIS Patent Shelter.” Suffice it to say that David is connecting the dots rather differently than I did a few days ago when I blogged on the same factual situation.
If the following story rings a bell, it should. Actually, it should ring several bells. Here's why.
Over at Courante.com, there's a thread debating whether the Web 2.0 will be an anarchic mix of individualized, patched together next steps, or the orderly Semantic Web envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. Well, let's think about that.