In my book, a standard isn't open if you have to pay $$ to obtain/use it.

That is, ISO standards aren't open.

@encthenet yeah :(

@encthenet EXACTLY!

#OpenStandards require neither #licensing nor #paywall the specs.

@encthenet in fact, I'd argue that even Amazon's shitty #S3 #API is an #OpenStandard since there are multiple drop-in reimplemetations and unlike say #Oracle, #Amazon doesn't even try to ban those.

Cuz #API|s and #ABI|s are critical.

@mikolaj @encthenet You know, there's controversy within the ISO over them charging for their documents.

But every time they take steps away from that they walk it back.

So pro-tip: The ISO mostly republishes these standards from other organizations. You can usually find them published freely online at the organizations who actually wrote these standards!

@kkarhan

I'd have to look/think closer to make a decision on that. I *GUESS* S3 (HTTP) is fully documented and it is free to access/read, so at first glance is an #OpenStandard.

@encthenet Case in point, only #MultiVendor & #MultiProvider solutions survive, and those must inherently be #OpenSource & #OpenStandards...

The few exceptions are either old legacy shit and/or have only worse-licensed competitiors.

@alcinnz @mikolaj Sometimes, but I can't find it for TIFF-EP. Yes, TIFF-EP is based upon TIFF 6.0, but it from what I can see, it extended TIFF 6.0, and I can't seem to find the root standard for TIFF-EP. No one ever mentions where it came from.

@alcinnz @mikolaj

I'd have less issue w/ them if they had programs for OSS devs to obtain them for free. It'd still suck, but it'd effectively be free, as pretty much anyone could claim to be an OSS dev.

But as it stands, ISO is actually impeding standards by locking them behind paywalls. They definitely are only "helping" companies.

ISO isn't much better than journal publishers, like Elsevier.

@encthenet @alcinnz @mikolaj They are IMHO substantially worse than Elsevier. They use the same unpaid/tax financed writers, but charge for the resulting document approach, but where Elsevier at least has licenses that cover an entire org, ISO licenses are only per individual. So in the end, ISO standards are so inaccessible that they fail at being a standard at all, even in a commercial setting.

@encthenet @alcinnz @mikolaj I.e. even if you work for a big company, you will not be easily and readily able to access an ISO standard, to say nothing about Open Source devs. And this is not even for purely financial reasons, but also because their individual licenses approach requires one hell of a license management system, that pretty much no other type of commercial info requires.

@encthenet @alcinnz @mikolaj compare that to NIST where you'll not only get a free standard, but usually also a set of free symbolic pictures to go with it, so that you can use it for your slide decks.

Like my favorite illustration for post quantum cryptography schemes, yours for the very cheap price of a credit to the author N. Hanacek:
https://www.nist.gov/image/post-quantum-cryptography-algorithms

@erk @encthenet Well, whilst #ISO, #DIN, #ANSI & Co. only take existing standards and reward them with their blessing, I think they should mandate those to be truly open.

For example I'd cnsider the acceptance of #OOXML to be the biggest Mistake of ISO since not only did they already accepted #OpenDocument as superior option, but at >6.000 (!!!) pages "specification" it's practically impossible to implement OOXML by anyone but #Microsoft.

@erk @encthenet I'd also not consider it an "open standard" since it basically relies on multiple, non-#FLOSS technologies, some even #patented by #Microsoft - to be used.

In fact, the reference implementation is #MicrosoftOffice and there are no 100% feature-complete alternatives.

It only exists to undermine #OpenDocument and sabotage it's deserved market dominance.

@erk

@kkarhan

Except that there are other forums that produce standards that are open/free. I've participated in an OASIS standard. In checking to see if ecma made all their standards free, I came across this:
https://www.nist.gov/standardsgov/standards-organizations-offer-free-access-their-standards

Quite a few orgs making their standards free (though a number of the ones on that list have limitations).

#API #s3

@erk

@kkarhan

Also, requiring people/companies to pay doubly ensures that not everyone's voice is heard. It's already time consuming enough, but having to pay thousands of dollars for the honor of spending your free time to try to fight against corporations isn't something most OSS people want to do.

There's a reason most RFCs are corporate sponsored.

#API #s3

@charlotte @erk @encthenet EXACTLY!

#Amazon has a vested interest to act a bit more longterm.
Unlike #Microsoft's #EEE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%2C_extend%2C_and_extinguish#Examples_by_Microsoft ] they want #S3 to become the de-facto standard, as they already dominate #CloudComputing and making shit easier on their platform will only work if it isn't exclusive.

Even if that means Microsoft ( #Azure ), #OVH, #Hetzner and even #Proxmox can do the same...

It also fixes a lot of issues #iSCSI has...

@kkarhan @erk @encthenet MS also lobbied that vote heavily. It was not made as a technical decision at ISO.

@davidwmaxwell @erk @encthenet OFC not.

Why else would they've agreed on >6.000 pages of #bloatware within less than half the time it took for #SVG [ ~ 1.000 pages]...