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Toot

Written by Phil Wolff on 2024-08-27 at 18:11

While I'm pleased this standard is finished for now (IEEE 2933-2024) and glad to have contributed to the #identity bits, I'm sad that it's a closed standard, only available for purchase, with IP locked down. This is the default for #IEEE Standards Association workproduct. As a contributor it means that while I can point to this catalog page, I cannot point to the work itself or share it or fork it. So different from open standards. I'm unlikely to do that again.

https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/2933/7592/

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Descendants

Written by Kent Pitman on 2024-08-27 at 19:56

@evanwolf

Closely related to some discussion we had about publishing behind paywalls. See this thread:

https://climatejustice.social/@petersuber@fediscience.org/113011908753842408

I'm not a lawyer, so this opinion of mine is based on my sense of morality, not any specific understanding of legality, but I gotta say that I think (in my lay opinion) the standards framework you describe ought to be subject to legal challenge (class action?) to get it opened up.

The legal profession tries to keep nonlawyers from offering opinions about law, which may sometimes be proper, but it impedes citizens in a democracy from overseeing their government. Ordinary people need to form opinions about the forces that often run circles around them. To do this, they need a right to have opinions on individual laws and cases.

It's a slight tangent, but worth noting the existence of writing by Larry Lessig on this topic, in particular his book Code, which I believe was later revised as Code 2.0. I heard him speak on it when it first came out. The essence seemed to be that we are governed in the US (and elsewhere, but his metaphor features the US), by two kinds of code. "East Coast" code is the law that comes out of Washington DC. Code is another name for law. "West Coast" code is the code that comes out of silicon valley. Code is another name for programming. Each of these, by their nature, constrain human existence, dictating what we can and cannot do.

I don't remember the time order of things, but his thought on this may have led to Lessig's creation of the Creative Commons, and is work on making certain kinds of intellectual property statements more accessible. The reason I find it relevant here, is that it highlights, if you believe that code is law, that a paywall between you and the "code" that is a standard, is effectively a "secret law", governing our citizen-overseen world, yet not easily accessible to citizen oversight. This smells a bit to me of privatized gains and socialized losses.

But let me return to what I have intended to say before I get further afield than that.

The first standard I worked on was an ANSI standard, first as a technical contributor, later as a corporate rep, and eventually as Project Editor. ANSI sent someone at the start to explain the process, mentioning that the primary goal of standards is to not get sued, and that secondarily we would create standards. I thought this a cute joke, but later came to believe it literally true. For companies to coordinate with each other about biz process is the essence of anticompetitive practice, of corporate collusion. It's what antitrust law wants to stop.

But the public has a strong interest in standards, notwithstanding fears of collusion, so standards bodies get specifically designed for "safe" coordination. Requirements for public review have to be there, at least for ANSI, and I assume for IEEE and other standards publishers. The ANSI rules give generous power to small entities who believe they would be harmed economically by choices made. The intent, best I understand it, is to say that, yes, there is coordination going on, so yes, there is risk of restraint of trade, the moral ill the antitrust law seeks to hold in check, but that these other mechanisms for public review and for a strong voice to small parties with small budgets, will provide what can be argued to be sufficient protection.

Let me indulge one more tangent, which will seem odd at first, but that I promise to tie in. There was once a day when I thought Disneyland and its ilk to be fundamentally theme parks, and their merchandise like stuffed animals and t-shirts to be secondary. Over time, I have come to question whether it isn't a clearer model to say that these parks are shopping malls with rides as a cute hook for marketing purposes, a reason you should spend all day shopping. It's a business model/pattern I see replicated in other market areas. And maybe it's only me that sees it, but it's a feeling I've had for a long time.

Publication houses work this way, too, sometimes. So you can see organizations like ANSI and IEEE as concerned with standards, and publication as a detail. Or you can ponder whether it's better to see them as publication houses with a hook, a VERY CLEVER hook where they don't even pay for the creation of material they publish, but incentivize content creators to pay them for the privilege of publication they won't see revenue from. (VERY Tom Sawyer of them.) So their motivation is in question from the start.

I lived an ANSI process, but don't know IEEE's at all. How can a private standard have a proper public review?

Even so, when standards like ANSI and IEEE are not freely readable, it fights future market entry by folks who maybe can't afford copies of standards-for-fee. Seems anti-competitive to me. YMMV.

[#]standards #paywall #antitrust #lisp #OpenStandards

Edit: Removed some redundancy in the first two paragraphs. (Perils of authoring long posts on a phone.)

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