Hoi, The ISO standards are a bit more than just language standards. They are absolutely free to use them as is. You are not allowed to represent codes that you make up that confuse with what is in the standard. For ISO-639 this is absolutely reasonable given that there are over 7000 codes to start off with.
So if you refuse to use standards that you can not change start telling people in the city how many bunder your father has on his farm. You will find that many do not have an idea how wide an area that is.
Free is a relative thing. For some things it makes no sense at all to have them Free as in you can change it in any which way. The standard organisations have several ways in which they can be influenced. You can discuss with them about language issues and, that is what the language subcommittee of the WMF hopes to do. In the mean time, you have to realise that the ISO standards are an integral part of how the world wide web works. When you decide that you will not use these standards, I am afraid your computer will not be able to communicate with the Internet. Standards are standards for a reason.
Thanks, GerardM
On 10/10/06, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
2006/10/9, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
If that is the case, then isn't using it against our policies of only using open source?
Hoi, This is like saying: I do not want to use the kilo or the Ampere because you are not interpret in a way that you see fit. Open Souce is about SOFTWARE. But ISO-639 are about STANDARDS it is no use if it is not used as a standard ie as a given.
We use free standards as well as free software. Standards that may not be used in some way are not free.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l