In a report to be presented at the World Bank today, a group that includes senior government officials from 13 countries will urge nations to adopt open-information technology standards as a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation.

The 33-page report is a road map for creating national policies on open technology standards, and comes at a time when several countries - and some state governments - are pursuing plans to reduce their dependence on proprietary software makers, notably Microsoft, by using more free, open-source software.

The project, begun by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, gathered government officials from China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere at a three-day meeting in Silicon Valley in February to discuss technology standards and economic development. The meeting was followed by e-mail exchanges, conference calls and postings on a shared Web site.

The group defines an open standard as technology that is not owned by a single company and is openly published. Still, there is a huge debate in industry and among policy makers about how far openness should go.

The report makes clear that government policy should "mandate technology choice, not software development models."

It also points out that open technology standards - the digital equivalent of a common gauge for railroad tracks - are not the same thing as open-source software. Open source is a development model for software in which code is freely shared and improved by a cooperative network of programmers.

A PATENT IBM was granted last December is for an "invention" that allows independent programmers who might work together to produce a unified software product.
In fact, the patent, 6,658,642 goes further and gives examples such as open source software development such as Linux as the basis for its patent.

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an
idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it
to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the
possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of
it."
- Thomas Jefferson

A good article on the background and founders of the Chandler project.

Source

THE NEXT VERSION of America Online's (AOL) Instant Messenger (AIM) will allow users to communicate with ICQ users in a move that will bridge the gap between the company's two popular chat services.

In IBM's view, the business and technology industries are entering a new era called "on-demand." In this era, companies will have to respond rapidly to customers' demands, market opportunities and external threats. To do that, Mr. Palmisano said it will require technology that is based on open standards, can easily be integrated, and can identify and fix problems itself. According to the executive, this new model will save companies money and will reduce the complexity of systems.