ABSTRACT: A Call for Communication Between Communities

Andrew Updegrove

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2005)

As the work of the open source community becomes more sophisticated and ambitious, that community has become more conscious of the need for open source to implement the open standards that are set in standard setting organizations. However, the processes by which open source software and "open standards" are in many ways quite different, as are the licensing terms that are acceptable in each setting. An open letter sent in early 2005 by 29 open source community leaders to OASIS, a prominent standards developing consortium, called for a boycott of OASIS standards and projects, unless OASIS would change its intellectual property rights policy. This article addresses that ultimatum, and seeks to show why it is both inappropriate, as well as unlikely to achieve long-term goals.