ECMA INTERNATIONAL: STANDARDIZATION and OPEN SOURCE SOME EXPERIENCES ECMA INTERNATIONAL: Standardization and Open Source ‐ Some Experiences

ETSI SUMMIT ON STANDARDIZATION AND OPEN SOURCE

ECMA INTERNATIONAL: STANDARDIZATION AND OPEN SOURCE SOME EXPERIENCES ECMA INTERNATIONAL: Standardization and Open Source ‐ Some Experiences

Dr. István Sebestyén Secretary General Ecma International Who are we?

Ecma International is a not‐for‐profit association under Swiss Law/Geneva, established in 1961 by major multinational computer hardware manufacturers present at that time in Europe. Originally “ECMA” stood for “European Computer Manufacturers’ Association”. In 1994 the “brand name” was kept, but the name changed to simply “Ecma”: “International” was added because membership has changed to global Broad scope of standardisation topics including hardware, software, communications, consumer electronics, media, storage, environmental subjects, etc… Track record: 519 ECMA standards / TRs: Ecma publications are free of charge and can be freely downloaded from the Ecma website www.ecma‐international.org.

Many of them were submitted to fast‐track to ISO/IEC JTC1 (e.g. 190 lately between 2000‐2015), and many (67) joint standards also with ETSI. Ecma’s “business model”

Try to fill in the “holes” in standardization: ‐High speed ‐High efficiency ‐Flexible procedures ‐Own expert teams in harmony and co‐ operation with other SDOs Ecma Standards development process

Supported by min. ECMA- Ecma 3 members XXX publication Work item proposal

Ecma Process

accept review

consensus Approval: approve vote 1st draft Between 4 months and 9 years (average 1 year) Editor drafts Final Technical Draft Committee

General Assembly submit Revisions, contributions

Fast Track Submission E.g. ISO/IEC JTC1 Development Vote in the Work Item in a Technical Final Draft General ECMA-xxx In short: Committee Assembly In case of Open Source driven standardization projects

Respective Open Source Community

ECMA- XXX Work item proposal

Ecma Process

accept review

consensus approve vote 1st draft

drafts Final Technical Draft Committee

General Assembly submit Revisions, contributions

Development Vote in the Fast Track Work Item in a Technical Final Draft General ECMA-xxx Submission In short: Committee Assembly IPR Policy that takes into account needs of Open Source

Ecma IPR policy has several components (which is more extensive than the « classical » SDO policies) (http://www.ecma-international.org/memento/Ecma%20IPR%20policies.htm): Copyrights: Ecma International grants a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to obtain (on paper or per download), reproduce and use the information contained in its standards. On Software Copyright in Ecma standards a policy with Royalty Free BSD like license is in force Patents: Basic policy: FRAND, similar to the patent policies of other SDOs (ITU-T / ISO/ IEC/ ETSI,..) Optional policy: Royalty Free (RF) Patent Policy (this is important to some Open Source Project communities such as related to basic web standards) How does the RF Patent Policy Option work?

Proposal of an Ecma Technical Committee (TC) for a RF standardization project Upfront decision by the Ecma General Assembly (GA) on the RF standardization project Creation of a RF Task Group (RF TG) within the relevant TC Formal registration of participating Ecma members into the RF TG (i.e. legal commitment for RF contributions) At well‐defined points in the standardization project possibilities of RF TG members to “Opt out” (leave) from the RF draft standard In the end RF guarantee by at least those who are driving the standardization process. Example 1: ECMAScript Standardization ECMA‐262 (ECMAScript): The standard for the "JavaScript" programming language which is built into every web browser. It is a RF standardization project Being developed by Ecma TC39 with a very strong link to the Open Source Community outside of Ecma, but Ecma‐only standard publication (later also fast‐ tracked to ISO/IEC JTC1). No single dominate contributor. Publicly available drafts. Use of familiar open source tools (e.g., public discussion lists, GitHub). Mirroring most important information into TC39 documents (for archival purposes) TC39 accepts non‐member contributions (many are software based) from the open source community. Those contributors have to fulfill the same legal requirements than an Ecma TC39 RF member TC39 constantly informs the outside world about the status of the standardization project, promotes discussion and feedback, encourages contributions. TC39 acts as a “filter” of what gets into the standard and what not. Parallel standardization and implementation (e.g. in Browsers) Example 2: Dart Standardization ECMA‐408: Dart is an open‐source, scalable programming language, with robust libraries and runtimes, for building web, server, and mobile apps. It is also a RF standardization project It is a “turbo speed” standardization project with Ecma standard approval of new Editions every 6 months. Parallel approval and implementation Being developed by Ecma TC52 with a very strong link to the Dart community (https://www.dartlang.org/) outside of Ecma. This is a open standard but is primarily based upon work from a single major contributor. Publicly available drafts Use of external tools. Mirroring most important information into TC52 documents (for archival purposes) Parallel synchronized publications of the Ecma Dart standard and the Dart Specification (e.g. ECMA‐408 Ed 3 = Dart Language Specification 1.9 –not every Dart version is approved and published by Ecma). No fast‐track to ISO/IEC JTC1 Conclusions and questions

Ecma International can embrace the requirements of Open Source communities and collaborate with open source standardization projects (The extended Ecma procedures and working style support that) Question: Are those procedures and working style Ecma specific or transferable to other SDOs? A strong link between Ecma and the external open source community is needed, which makes it more challenging than classical standardization projects. Many open source contributors don't understand or appreciate the traditional purpose, rules, and procedures of SDOs. (Similarly, SDOs often don't understand open source). Addressing this requires two‐way communications and accommodations. Current Ecma open source standardization projects require a RF patent policy. Question: Is that purely incidental or is that a general requirement for open sourced standardization projects? Thank you!

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