[Foundation-l] Re: Request for approval for a wiki for standards

Mon Jan 9 15:43:26 UTC 2006

Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> I know what is free [as in free speech] software and there are written
> definitions of it. I do not know yet what is a free [as in free
> speech] standard. The IETF is busy discussing it (in its IPR working
> group). Advices are welcome, and so are attemps to put down in writing
> the Definition of Free Standard (once you'll try to do it, you may
> discover that it is not so obvious).

Standards should be public domain, for the same reason that the Human 
Genome is public domain. There's a short section in Sir John Sulston's 
autobiography "The Common Thread" as to why the public domain is more 
suitable than "copyleft" licences for this.

Chris

-- 
Chris Jenkinson
chris at starglade.org

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
  -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra