[Chapter-delegates] Moving towards open standards at ITU-T

[Dave Burstein]

Folks

There's a good opportunity to quietly press for Open Standards at the ITU
starting with the coming July meetings. ISOC has a strong statement (below)
along with IETF and W3C. Hamadoun Touré has in principle agreed. So I'm
bringing the idea to the U.S. State Department International Telecommunications
Advisory Council meeting. I hope ISOC will see what's possible and find
ways to move this forward. I sent the below note to Danny Sepulveda at
State, who has taken over for Ambassador Phil Verveer.

    ISOC can be very effective here.
   The State Department ITAC is an open group that you can join and is
surprisingly influential. It gets you all the "confidential" ITU documents.
Do ask me for the details on how you can join. It has influence.


Danny

   Several things are coming together to make a natural opportunity to
support open standards at the ITU in the spirit of the Open Standards
proclamation below. Hamadoun at WCIT and previously made clear he was in
favor of "multi-stakeholder" and openness at ITU and I believe he was
sincere. I'm going to approach him next week at Columbia and I'm optimistic
he'll be supportive; he's taken a clear position on the general subject.

   For several reasons, I think the coming ITU-T standards meeting in
Geneva next month is a great opportunity to make quiet but important
progress. I'm writing to urge you to make sure the appropriate people at
State watch and support as appropriate.

   At Friday afternoon's meeting, I'm going to propose moving forward to
work with ITU-T in the spirit of the IETF-ISOC-IEEE-W3C Open Standards
principles as well as Doctor Touré's concluding statements at WTPF.
Specifically, I'm going to recommend that ITU affirm that members,
including the U.S. government, ISOC and IETF, freely share all documents
with their interested committee members. Touré made that clear in several
statements around WCIT and Ambassador Kramer made it so via ITAC. In
addition, to promote access by civil society to the standards process,
ITU-T should make clear that those wanting to participate may do so through
civil society groups like ISOC that are members of ITU or through the
liaison status of IETF. I'll urge the two groups to make this practical and
affordable for all members.

   One reason this is a good opportunity is that a long term leader of
SG-15, Tom Starr of ITAC, ATIS & AT&T, effectively chaired the ATIS DSL
Standards Group T1E1.4 which defined the DSL that 300 million people use
today. At the time, its work was completely open, proving effective
standards work can be done without secrecy. I remember he was very proud at
the time the group was open, although he hasn't opposed the current system.

   I hope you'll personally follow this up and take concrete steps to
promote open standards as opportunities become apparent.

Dave Burstein


Leading Global Standards Organizations Endorse 'OpenStand'
Principles that Drive Innovation and Borderless Commerce

IEEE, IAB, IETF, Internet Society and W3C Invite Other Standards
Organizations, Governments and Companies to Support Modern Paradigm
for Global, Open Standards

PISCATAWAY, N.J., and WASHINGTON, D.C., United States; GENEVA,
Switzerland, and http://www.w3.org/ -- 29 August 2012 -- Five leading
global organizations -- IEEE, Internet Architecture Board (IAB),
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Society and
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) -- today announced that they have
signed a statement affirming the importance of a jointly developed set
of principles establishing a modern paradigm for global, open standards.
The shared "OpenStand" principles -- based on the effective and
efficient standardization processes that have made the Internet and
Web the premiere platforms for innovation and borderless commerce -- are
proven in their ability to foster competition and cooperation, support
innovation and interoperability and drive market success.

IEEE, IAB, IETF, Internet Society and W3C invite other standards
organizations, governments, corporations and technology innovators
globally to endorse the principles, which are available at
open-stand.org.

The OpenStand principles strive to encapsulate that successful
standardization model and make it extendable across the contemporary,
global economy's gamut of technology spaces and markets. The principles
comprise a modern paradigm in which the economics of global
markets -- fueled by technological innovation -- drive global
deployment of standards, regardless of their formal status within
traditional bodies of national representation. The OpenStand principles
demand:

* cooperation among standards organizations;

* adherence to due process, broad consensus, transparency, balance
and openness in standards development;

* commitment to technical merit, interoperability, competition,
innovation and benefit to humanity;

* availability of standards to all; and

* voluntary adoption.

"New dynamics and pressures on global industry have driven changes in
the ways that standards are developed and adopted around the world,"
said Steve Mills, president of the IEEE Standards Association.
"Increasing globalization of markets, the rapid advancement of
technology and intensifying time-to-market demands have forced
industry to seek more efficient ways to define the global standards
that help expand global markets. The OpenStand principles foster the
more efficient international standardization paradigm that the world
needs."

Added Leslie Daigle, chief Internet technology officer with the Internet
Society: "International standards development for borderless economics
is not ad hoc; rather, it has a paradigm--one that has demonstrated
agility and is driven by technical merit. The OpenStand principles
convey the power of bottom-up collaboration in harnessing global
creativity and expertise to the standards of any technology space that
will underpin the modern economy moving forward."

Standards developed and adopted via the OpenStand principles include
IEEE standards for the Internet's physical connectivity, IETF standards
for end-to-end global Internet interoperability and the W3C standards
for the World Wide Web. 




Editor, DSL Prime, Fast Net News, Net Policy News and A Wireless Cloud
Author with Jennie Bourne  DSL (Wiley, 2002) and Web Video: Making It
Great, Getting It Noticed (Peachpit, 2008)
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