</description>
</item>
+ <item>
+ <title>Is Ogg Theora a free and open standard?</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Is_Ogg_Theora_a_free_and_open_standard_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 25 Dec 2010 20:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p><a href="http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition">The
+Digistan definition</a> of a free and open standard reads like this:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>The Digital Standards Organization defines free and open standard
+as follows:</p>
+
+<ol>
+
+<li>A free and open standard is immune to vendor capture at all stages
+in its life-cycle. Immunity from vendor capture makes it possible to
+freely use, improve upon, trust, and extend a standard over time.</li>
+
+<li>The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit
+organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an
+open decision-making procedure available to all interested
+parties.</li>
+
+<li>The standard has been published and the standard specification
+document is available freely. It must be permissible to all to copy,
+distribute, and use it freely.</li>
+
+<li>The patents possibly present on (parts of) the standard are made
+irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.</li>
+
+<li>There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+<p>The economic outcome of a free and open standard, which can be
+measured, is that it enables perfect competition between suppliers of
+products based on the standard.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>For a while now I have tried to figure out of Ogg Theora is a free
+and open standard according to this definition. Here is a short
+writeup of what I have been able to gather so far. I brought up the
+topic on the Xiph advocacy mailing list
+<a href="http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/advocacy/2009-July/001632.html">in
+July 2009</a>, for those that want to see some background information.
+According to Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves and Monty Montgomery on that list
+the Ogg Theora specification fulfils the Digistan definition.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Free from vendor capture?</strong></p>
+
+<p>As far as I can see, there is no single vendor that can control the
+Ogg Theora specification. It can be argued that the
+<a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiph foundation</A> is such vendor, but
+given that it is a non-profit foundation with the expressed goal
+making free and open protocols and standards available, it is not
+obvious that this is a real risk. One issue with the Xiph
+foundation is that its inner working (as in board member list, or who
+control the foundation) are not easily available on the web. I've
+been unable to find out who is in the foundation board, and have not
+seen any accounting information documenting how money is handled nor
+where is is spent in the foundation. It is thus not obvious for an
+external observer who control The Xiph foundation, and for all I know
+it is possible for a single vendor to take control over the
+specification. But it seem unlikely.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Maintained by open not-for-profit organisation?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Assuming that the Xiph foundation is the organisation its web pages
+claim it to be, this point is fulfilled. If Xiph foundation is
+controlled by a single vendor, it isn't, but I have not found any
+documentation indicating this.</p>
+
+<p>According to
+<ahref="http://media.hiof.no/diverse/fad/rapport_4.pdf">a report</a>
+prepared by Audun Vaaler og Børre Ludvigsen for the Norwegian
+government, the Xiph foundation is a non-commercial organisation and
+the development process is open, transparent and non-Discrimatory.
+Until proven otherwise, I believe it make most sense to believe the
+report is correct.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Specification freely available?</strong></p>
+
+<p>The specification for the <a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/">Ogg
+container format</a> and both the
+<a href="http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/doc/">Vorbis</a> and
+<a href="http://theora.org/doc/">Theora</a> codeces are available on
+the web. This are the terms in the Vorbis and Theora specification:
+
+<blockquote>
+
+Anyone may freely use and distribute the Ogg and [Vorbis/Theora]
+specifications, whether in private, public, or corporate
+capacity. However, the Xiph.Org Foundation and the Ogg project reserve
+the right to set the Ogg [Vorbis/Theora] specification and certify
+specification compliance.
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The Ogg container format is specified in IETF
+<a href="http://www.xiph.org/ogg/doc/rfc3533.txt">RFC 3533</a>, and
+this is the term:<p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
+others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
+or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
+distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
+provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
+included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
+document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
+the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
+Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
+Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
+in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
+translate it into languages other than English.</p>
+
+<p>The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
+revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>All these terms seem to allow unlimited distribution and use, an
+this term seem to be fulfilled. There might be a problem with the
+missing permission to distribute modified versions of the text, and
+thus reuse it in other specifications. Not quite sure if that is a
+requirement for the Digistan definition.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Royalty-free?</strong></p>
+
+<p>There are no known patent claims requiring royalties for the Ogg
+Theora format.
+<a href="http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=65782">MPEG-LA</a>
+and
+<a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit">Steve
+Jobs</a> in Apple claim to know about some patent claims (submarine
+patents) against the Theora format, but no-one else seem to believe
+them. Both Opera Software and the Mozilla Foundation have looked into
+this and decided to implement Ogg Theora support in their browsers
+without paying any royalties. For now the claims from MPEG-LA and
+Steve Jobs seem more like FUD to scare people to use the H.264 codec
+than any real problem with Ogg Theora.
+
+<p><strong>No constraints on re-use?</strong></p>
+
+<p>I am not aware of any constraints on re-use.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p>
+
+<p>3 of 5 requirements seem obviously fulfilled, and the remaining 2
+depend on the governing structure of the Xiph foundation. Given the
+background report used by the Norwegian government, I believe it is
+safe to assume the last two requirements are fulfilled too, but it
+would be nice if the Xiph foundation web site made it easier to verify
+this.</p>
+
+<p>It would be nice to see other analysis of other specifications to
+see if they are free and open standards.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
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