[OpenISO] openiso

[Janet Hawtin]

On 9/6/07, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:
> Janet Hawtin <lucychili at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think you should turn around the requirements.
> > The ISO body is having problems because a consumer of their standards
> > cannot tell what it is good for because there are no clear guarantees
> > about what they offer.
>
> Can you give a possible example of what you mean with a "clear
> guarantee" and explain how OpenISO.org might arrive at being able to
> provide it?

GPL is a licence where people know what they can do with the item.
That kind of clarity around safe use could be a brand for OpenISO
If it has anything OpenISO on it you can use it safely long term for
data interoperability with anything because thats what that group
values.

It means there is an open process.
Implementations by different groups.
Safe legal use of the standard.

> > If OpenISO is able to approve only material which has a known and
> > explicit legal safety common to all their standards and a known and
> > agreed purpose as a best practice standard with reliable data
> > interoperability then it is better for openISO to be more careful
> > about those values and not to pass things which a consumer cannot
> > understand as being something fit for use. Or worse if someone thinks
> > it must be good because it is approved which is where ISO are heading.
>
> I tend to think that what OpenISO.org should guarantee is a _process_
> in which every serious concern is fairly evaluated in a fact-oriented
> manner.

Yes the process is core.
The process matches to criteria.
The criteria are what need to be explicit to people who are not in the process.

> Here, with "serious concern" I mean a concern about a specification
> which has an OpenISO.org rating or is currently being evaluated for a
> rating, where the concern is serious enough that if it found to be
> valid, it will lower that specification's rating.

I would not touch any kind of rating on something you do not approve.
It provides opportunties for squirrelly marketing folk to say OpenISO
and product name in the same sentence. If the logo or name is near
something it should mean it is safe and open. Not that you think it is
a bit dodgy? Which is likely to end in legal arguments rather than a
clean idea around what the standard represents?

Janet