blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html

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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</title>
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  12  <h1>
  13      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  14
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  20     <div class="entry">
  21       <div class="title">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</div>
  22       <div class="date">19th April 2012</div>
  23       <div class="body"><p>Here in Norway, the
  24 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
  25 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
  26 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
  27 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
  28 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
  29 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
  30 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
  31 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
  32 on the same level.</p>
  33
  34 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
  35 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
  36 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
  37 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
  38 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
  39 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
  40 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
  41 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
  42 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
  43 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
  44 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
  45 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
  46 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
  47 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
  48 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
  49 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
  50 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
  51 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
  52
  53 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
  54 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
  55 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
  56 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
  57 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
  58 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
  59 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
  60 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
  61
  62 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
  63 from Simon Phipps
  64 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
  65 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
  66
  67 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
  68 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
  69 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
  70 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
  71 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
  72 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
  73 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
  74 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
  75 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
  76 </div>
  77
  78       <div class="tags">Tags: <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/english">english</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/multimedia">multimedia</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/nuug">nuug</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/standard">standard</a>, <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/video">video</a>.</div>
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