This is one of the more interesting IP initiatives I've heard of, even simply as an intellectual exercise. Even better if it actually happens.
I'll add two suggestions to the wish list. First a purely selfish plea for content lost: the Voyager Company catalog of electronic media. This is almost a recursive request since several Voyager titles were themselves exercises in freeing legacy works. I'll lose access to the titles on my shelf whenever Apple ceases support for OS-9. Some, like "With Open Eyes", are great works by the standards of any medium. Presumably there are many other publishers from the early, perhaps pre-internet, days of electronic media whose historically significant content is at risk.
A more revolutionary suggestion is to open up the technical standards process. Many international standards are proprietary, such as ISO-8601 that any of you who were engaged in Y2K remediation efforts must surely be familiar with. Familiar with, but perhaps have never seen a copy of, because they charge real bucks. Another example just from the area of timekeeping is ITU-R TF.460-6. What is this you say? The internationally recognized (e.g., by our State Dept.) definition of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC underlies standard civil time throughout the world. Here is a theater-of-the- absurd quote from the minutes of a recent ITU meeting of their working party 7A:
"After the introduction of the document the WP-7A counsellor informed WP-7A that a preliminary document i.e. the PDRR, could not be circulated beyond WP-7A according to ITU-R resolutions nor could the currently in effect Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6, be attached to the SRG report with an explanation of proposed changes since all ITU-R Recommendations are only sold by the ITU-R."
To give you a sense of the kind of service opening this standard up would provide, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) is debating removing any connection between UTC (i.e., the time on your wall, your wrist, your cell-phone and your laptop) and the motion of the Sun in the sky, by eliminating leap seconds. Small in the short term. World-changing in the long term.
Vast number of other standards documents that underlie the infrastructure of the modern world are similarly protected behind proprietary walls. I recall a piece from the early days of Wired magazine describing one noble soul's fruitless efforts to convince ISO to loosen their proprietary policies. Actually, there is a third suggestion – buy up the rights to back issues of Wired and other "popular" journals, not just the academic literature. Anybody who has tried to navigate wired.com to find their rare precious nuggets would thank you!
Rob Seaman National Optical Astronomy Observatory
Rob Seaman wrote: <snip>
A more revolutionary suggestion is to open up the technical standards process. Many international standards are proprietary, such as ISO-8601 that any of you who were engaged in Y2K remediation efforts must surely be familiar with. Familiar with, but perhaps have never seen a copy of, because they charge real bucks. Another example just from the area of timekeeping is ITU-R TF.460-6. What is this you say? The internationally recognized (e.g., by our State Dept.) definition of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC underlies standard civil time throughout the world. Here is a theater-of-the- absurd quote from the minutes of a recent ITU meeting of their working party 7A:
"After the introduction of the document the WP-7A counsellor informed WP-7A that a preliminary document i.e. the PDRR, could not be circulated beyond WP-7A according to ITU-R resolutions nor could the currently in effect Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6, be attached to the SRG report with an explanation of proposed changes since all ITU-R Recommendations are only sold by the ITU-R."
To give you a sense of the kind of service opening this standard up would provide, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) is debating removing any connection between UTC (i.e., the time on your wall, your wrist, your cell-phone and your laptop) and the motion of the Sun in the sky, by eliminating leap seconds. Small in the short term. World-changing in the long term.
Vast number of other standards documents that underlie the infrastructure of the modern world are similarly protected behind proprietary walls. I recall a piece from the early days of Wired magazine describing one noble soul's fruitless efforts to convince ISO to loosen their proprietary policies.
<snip>
Oh golly yes! My major gripe with the IEEE is that they won't accept public domain documents - I recently had to work with their software design document guidelines and was informed by my supervisor "this is a copyrighted document, look after it".
Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Rob Seaman wrote:
<snip>
A more revolutionary suggestion is to open up the technical standards process. Many international standards are proprietary, such as ISO-8601 that any of you who were engaged in Y2K remediation efforts must surely be familiar with. Familiar with, but perhaps have never seen a copy of, because they charge real bucks. Another example just from the area of timekeeping is ITU-R TF.460-6. What is this you say? The internationally recognized (e.g., by our State Dept.) definition of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC underlies standard civil time throughout the world. Here is a theater-of-the- absurd quote from the minutes of a recent ITU meeting of their working party 7A:
"After the introduction of the document the WP-7A counsellor informed WP-7A that a preliminary document i.e. the PDRR, could not be circulated beyond WP-7A according to ITU-R resolutions nor could the currently in effect Recommendation ITU-R TF.460-6, be attached to the SRG report with an explanation of proposed changes since all ITU-R Recommendations are only sold by the ITU-R."
To give you a sense of the kind of service opening this standard up would provide, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) is debating removing any connection between UTC (i.e., the time on your wall, your wrist, your cell-phone and your laptop) and the motion of the Sun in the sky, by eliminating leap seconds. Small in the short term. World-changing in the long term.
Vast number of other standards documents that underlie the infrastructure of the modern world are similarly protected behind proprietary walls. I recall a piece from the early days of Wired magazine describing one noble soul's fruitless efforts to convince ISO to loosen their proprietary policies.
<snip>
Oh golly yes! My major gripe with the IEEE is that they won't accept public domain documents - I recently had to work with their software design document guidelines and was informed by my supervisor "this is a copyrighted document, look after it".
This is an interesting issue. It ties in with freeing the laws.
To what extent do international standards have the force of law? If the United States adopts such a standard to have the force of law within the United States then it should be subject to the same copyright provisions as any other law of the United States. This does not necessarily help in other countries, but it's worth considering.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wonders:
To what extent do international standards have the force of law?
I can't even pretend to understand the legal ramifications, but the participation of the U.S. State Department in the UTC discussions suggests that this particular standard is being treated as some sort of treaty obligation. One suspects that the "force of law" question varies from standard to standard. For instance, standards tied into interstate commerce such as labeling requirements on food packaging are likely very closely aligned with federal codes.
On the other hand, issues of timekeeping can vary from state to state, i.e., Arizona does not observe daylight saving time. Or even vary within a state or province, since the Navajo nation NE of Phoenix does observe DST, while the Hopi nation (completely embedded within the Navajo boundaries) does not. Many countries don't even reference such standards directly, but only rely on indirect effects. In this case, a number of countries legally recognize the older Greenwich Mean Time standard. Opening up the standards documents - if not the standards process - would benefit the powerful as much as the powerless.
The question is: What does $100M buy you? This vanishes next to an international media market of many billions of dollars. That's gigabucks per year, of course. Even such a generous offering isn't going to carry the open source revolution into the streets.
The proper model must surely be similar to the Nature Conservancy, accomplished by: aiming to free the most strategic of information assets first, directly purchasing only what you must, protecting other at-risk data via information easements, spending smarter not outspending, building local cyber-coalitions, connecting open content green-way corridors, cooperating with unlikely allies such as "information ranchers", and ultimately funding it all with creative methods such as tax-friendly knowledge-capitalist estate planning or boutique info-tourist destinations.
Rob Seaman National Optical Astronomy Observatory
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org