Panel 5.2: The role of Standards in Open Source Dr. István Sebestyén Ecma and Open Source Software Development

• Ecma is one of the oldest SDOs in ICT standardization (founded in 1961) • Examples for Ecma-OSS Standardization Projects: • 2006-2008 ECMA-376 (fast tracked as ISO/IEC 29500) “Office Open XML File Formats” RAND in Ecma and JTC1, but RF with ’s “Open Specification Promise” – it worked. Today at least 30+ OSS implementations of the standards – important for feedback in maintenance • 201x-today ECMA-262 (fast tracked as ISO/IEC 16262) “ECMAScript Language Specification” with OSS involvement and input. Since 2018 different solution because of yearly updates of the standard (Too fast for the “fast track”).

• 2013 ECMA-404 (fast tracked as ISO/IEC 21778 ) “The JSON Data Interchange Syntax“. Many OSS impl.

Rue du Rhône 114 - CH-1204 Geneva - T: +41 22 849 6000 - F: +41 22 849 6001 - www.ecma-international.org 2 Initial Questions by the OSS Workshop Moderators:

• Is Open Source development the next stage to be adopted by SDOs? • To what extent a closer collaboration between standards and open source software development could increase efficiency of both? • How can intellectual property regimes - applied by SDOs - influence the ability and motivation of open source communities to cooperate with them? • Should there be a role for policy setting at EU level? What actions of the European Commission could maximize the positive impact of Open Source in the European economy?

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• Is Open Source development the next stage to be adopted by SDOs? • No. OSS in certain standardization areas has been around for a long time (since the 1980s). • It is subject dependent and dependent of the policies of the relevant SDO. This fact remains unchanged.

• E.g. The OSS development of the JPEG (still picture coding) standard by the informal Joint Photographic Experts Group the IJG in 1990 was my first project with OSS development. It was the first “killer application” for the success of the joint text ITU/ISO/IEC JPEG standard. The JPEG specification was submitted to ITU/ISO/IEC for parallel approval by the SDOs and for OSS development by the IJG. • Preconditions: The JPEG Specification had to be Royalty Free and had to be a “Tool box” standard. JPEG had a RF based patent policy. The SDOs had RAND policy, i.e only “yes” or “no” was allowed when accepting the JPEG specification

Rue du Rhône 114 - CH-1204 Geneva - T: +41 22 849 6000 - F: +41 22 849 6001 - www.ecma-international.org 4 Question 2 and Answer:

• To what extent a closer collaboration between standards and open source software development could increase efficiency of both? • If SDOs want closer collaboration and more OSS involvement in standardization they have to adopt policies that are more OSS friendly:

• E.g. Royalty Free Patent Policy Regime • Suitable OSS friendly Software Copyright Policy (with one of the known OSS licences…) • Openness for external co-laboration with OSS communities (often just individuals not companies) • If the SDO can not make those changes directly, then it should utilize the help of another SDO or Fora as “intermediate” e.g. via “Fast Track” / PAS submission or Normative Referencing. (e.g. JTC1 examples with some Ecma projects…)

Rue du Rhône 114 - CH-1204 Geneva - T: +41 22 849 6000 - F: +41 22 849 6001 - www.ecma-international.org 5 Question 3 and Answer:

• How can intellectual property regimes - applied by SDOs - influence the ability and motivation of open source communities to cooperate with them? • Very clear: OSS and FRAND patent policy regime of several SDOs are incompatible. The SDO patent policy must be RF based policy. • SDO Software Copyright policy must be compatible to the Software Copyright licenses of OSS projects • If the SDO directly can not satisfy the above requirements it must use as “intermediary” another SDOs that can cope with such situation and cooperate with that SDO e.g. via “Fast Track” /”PAS” or “Normative Referencing”

Rue du Rhône 114 - CH-1204 Geneva - T: +41 22 849 6000 - F: +41 22 849 6001 - www.ecma-international.org 6 Question 4 and Answer:

• Should there be a role for policy setting at EU level? What actions of the European Commission could maximize the positive impact of Open Source in the European economy? • Yes, the EC should more clearly support that besides FRAND based patent policy regimes also RF based patent policy regimes are equally important components in the standardization landscape, and should encourage FRAND patent policy based SDOs to take advantage of increased collaboration with Patent policies that support RF based policies. Otherwise the Classical SDOs remain handicapped when co-operating with OSS communities. • Yes, probably even more financial support for OSS communities (and persons) to finance their costs in standardization – with minimal “red tape”.

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