If ISO is never going to charge for use of such fundamental standards as country codes, it should warrant that it never will. In todays age of "Intellectual Property Rights" madness, their failure to so warrant leaves all users vulnerable to arbitrary future disruption and charges. Thanks, Donald ====================================================================== Donald E. Eastlake 3rd dee3@torque.pothole.com 155 Beaver Street +1-508-634-2066(h) Milford, MA 01757 USA Donald.Eastlake@motorola.com On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, John C Klensin wrote: > Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 13:22:02 -0400 > From: John C Klensin <john-ietf@jck.com> > Subject: Re: Proposal to charge for commercial use of ISO country codes? > > Unless Ollie's intent is being misinterpreted --the statement > isn't completely clear to me-- this idea is nuts. The whole > foundation of the voluntary standards model, of which ISO would > like to consider itself the center, is that there are never any > licensing fees for using a standard (excessive document-purchase > fees, maybe, but not licensing fees for use :-( ). > > In the case of those code lists, especially 3166, I'd assume > that some other body would rapidly work out an agreement with > the UN source of the entries and that would be the end of ISO's > role. As the W3C note sort of points out, that would be very > disruptive and would serve no one's interests, least of all that > of ISO's status and reputation. > > Just my opinion, of course. > john > > --On Saturday, 20 September, 2003 16:41 +0100 Graham Klyne > <gk@ninebynine.org> wrote: > > > The following may be of concern to users of IETF standards, > > particularly with respect to use of RFC3066 [3] (which itself > > cites ISO 3166 and ISO 639) and other standards that reference > > it. > > > > W3C has published the text of a letter [1] sent to ISO > > president Dr. Oliver Smoot expressing concern about a > > suggestion that ISO would charge software developers to use > > ISO codes in their products: > > > > [[ > > "Companies who develop software products for sale to other > > parties are adding value to their products by including the > > data elements from an ISO Code in proper applications ...via > > the sale of the product the developing company is not only > > being compensated for its direct efforts to incorporate the > > ISO Codes in apropriate locations but it is also being > > compensated for trhe value the ISO Codes have added to its > > product. The ISO community should also be compensated for > > providing the intellectual property required to incorporate > > the value-added features into the product." > > ]] > > -- excerpted from [2] > > > ># g > > -- > > > > [1] > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/2003JulSep/0213 > > > > [2] http://www.ncits.org/archive/2003/in031008/in031008.htm > > > > [3] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt > > > > ------------ > > Graham Klyne > > GK@NineByNine.org