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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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
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  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</div>
  24       <div class="date">19th April 2012</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>Here in Norway, the
  26 <a href="http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339"> Ministry of
  27 Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs</a> is behind
  28 a <a href="http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder">directory of
  29 standards</a> that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
  30 government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
  31 an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
  32 standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
  33 to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
  34 on the same level.</p>
  35
  36 <p>But recently, some standards with RAND
  37 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing">Reasonable
  38 And Non-Discriminatory</a>) terms have made their way into the
  39 directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
  40 standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
  41 implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
  42 user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
  43 willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
  44 practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
  45 be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
  46 definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
  47 So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
  48 And given that people will use the software without handing any money
  49 to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
  50 software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
  51 to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
  52 in these situations is that free software are locked out from
  53 implementing standards with RAND terms.</p>
  54
  55 <p>Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
  56 standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
  57 how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
  58 software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
  59 help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
  60 in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
  61 I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
  62 attention to these issues in the future.</p>
  63
  64 <p>You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
  65 from Simon Phipps
  66 (<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/">RAND:
  67 Not So Reasonable?</a>).</p>
  68
  69 <p>Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
  70 <a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm">blog
  71 post from Glyn Moody</a> over at Computer World UK warning about the
  72 same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
  73 can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
  74 <a href="http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder">the
  75 hearing taking place at the moment</a> (respond before 2012-04-27).
  76 It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
  77 specifications with RAND terms.</p>
  78 </div>
  79
  80       <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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