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A new OpenSource approach to Standards
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by maleger | July 27, 2008 at 01:41 pm
251 views | 6 Recommendations | 7 comments
A new standards organisation has been launched. WikiNörm is a Standards Development Organisation, or SDO, created by the Leger Research Foundation (a Non-Profit Organisation from Montréal, Québec, Canada). It promotes free and open standards, principally but not limited to, the field of information security and information technology.
Open Standards are not necessarely free standards. WikiNörms are free sandards. This means that all the work generated by this new Standards Development Organisation will benefit sciety as a whole, not special interest groups and not a para-governemental agency located in Geneva or Washington
Who can propose a standard ?
On WikiNörm anyone can propose a standard. As well, anyone can participate in standard development activities and submit amendments or suggestions for improvement. This is very different than many international organisations, to which membership is copntrolled ba an elite group. However, in WikiNörm, all participants must adhere to the Code of Ethics and agree to put all their work in the public domain under a GPL license. It's copyleft, not copyright.
WikiNörm is open for business, so to say, and looking for members, participants and contributors.
How does it work ?
Anytime a new standard is proposed, the proposer become the Project Editor, the person responsible for the new document. At this point, the standard is considered as a Draft Standard. The new Draft Standard is then published as such and discussed on WiKiNörm. Once the Project Editor, determines that a document has reached a sufficient level of maturity, he may ask WikiNörm for a WikiNörn Standard Number (WSN) to be assigned to the document and it is then considered at the Published Stage. These are the only two (2) stages of the WiKiNörm Standard Development Process (WSDP).
What about Copyright and licensing ?
All WikiNörm Standards are published under a General Public License, or GPL, known as Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada. They are free and may not be sold under any condition. This means that they may be used, integrated into applications, books or business processes at no cost. All that is asked is that the WikiNötn Standard Number (WSN) be identified and a link be put to this site or to the appropriate page on this site. A product that includes a WikiNörm standard may, in turn, be sold, as long as the WSN is mentionned.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (7)
at 15:16 on July 27th, 2008
Fascinating. Please use the highlight tool when to cite text from external sources.
at 18:43 on July 27th, 2008
maleger, I like this story. It's good stuff.
How does this relate to other standards bodies like W3 or ISO? What makes this better?
at 20:55 on July 27th, 2008
maleger, I like this story. It's good stuff.
Its interesting...
at 00:33 on July 28th, 2008
In this case, the external sourse is myself, as I also wrote the text on the WikiNörm site, would this still apply. I didn't think so, but would like to know.
at 00:37 on July 28th, 2008
maleger, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 00:53 on July 28th, 2008
The difference is not the same in all cases. As a participant in international standards, I have some issues about how they function. In he last few years I have been teaching standards at at the graduate level and have had a chance to think about their operation and their processes. I tried to chance some of them and to get involved in their management, but ended up getting suspended for one year by my own country. So please understand that I eed to be carefull in my answer, as they have a lot of power and money to attack me.
In some cases, the organisation makes a lot of money selling the standards. As well, in all participating countries, the national organisations also make a lot of money selling standards documents. Also some organisations are controlled by corporate interests, directly or indirectly. For example, when meetings are held all over the world, only individuals with significant funding have the budgets to travel to participate in all the meetings. Sort of a private club in a way. When it is time to vote, they are supposed to look at comments made by the local participants but in many cases, vote recommendations are made based on the opinion of the chair who dosen't consider the comments submitted. What is proposed here is more democratic asa there is no travel requirements and more openess.
at 03:37 on July 28th, 2008
I like this story,Its good stuff