I have written a text (reply to Erik) in Stackoverflow, describing why it will be good for OpenEHR if AOM2.0 will become an ISO-standard in the context of ISO13606 renewal.
I must add, it is not that I suspect anyone of having secret IP on OpenEHR.
I have no reason to suspect this.
But I know people who have such suspicions, and having the AOM-part as an ISO standard, surely will fight these rumors.
I think it will help OpenEHR-implementations to have more customers.
Bert
Hi Bert,
I am certainly conscious of rumours. Some of these are due to general suspicion of open source licensing (and we can, I think, do more to alleviate this) but I am afraid some of anxiety is also caused by inaccurate and misleading information “openEHR is proprietary”, regularly stated by a small number of individuals. I have had to ask for these to be corrected in a number of documents e.g. The SemanticHealthNet report where it was agreed by the principal authors, including Dipak, to be incorrect.
Since a significant number of companies and national organisations now make use of openEHR specifications or artefacts, these statements are being regarded as commercially hostile and the Foundation Boards both agree that legal action should now be taken where the authors are not prepared to promptly correct this inaccuracy.
Leaving that aside. I am not convinced that ISO is a good home for openEHR. The specifications, development and revision process in ISO remain completely closed and quite at odds withopenEHR principles but I would be interested in other’s views.
I do think that some sort of association with a formal standards body would help alleviate some of the anxieties you mention (though these are imaginary) but I am not sure that ISO would be my first choice as it is currently constructed. I will raise the issue of whether to submit AOM2 with the Management Board.
I am interested in other people’s opinions.
Ian
What do I misunderstand?
The definition of ‘proprietary’ according to GOOGLE is clear.
proprietary
prəˈprʌɪət(ə)ri/
adjective
adjective: proprietary
- 1.
relating to an owner or ownership.
“the company has a proprietary right to the property”
- behaving as if one owned something or someone.
“he looked about him with a proprietary air”
- 2.
(of a product) marketed under and protected by a registered trade name.
“proprietary brands of insecticide”
Origin
late Middle English (as a noun denoting a member of a religious order who held property): from late Latin proprietarius ‘proprietor’, from proprietas (see property).
On the openEHR website we all can read about the Legal Status.
And that is clear, also.
OpenEHR specs are owned by the company that is owned by UCL, only.
Gerard
I think that definition doesn’t apply to a standard / spec. IMO when we talk about standards, we focus on the ability to use it and let others use it, and the constraints / freedoms in that area, not in who is the owner.
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This is a misuse of the dictionary definition. Using your interpretation, all free/open projects are proprietary unless both IP and trademarks are made Public Domain. Linus Torvalds is the IP copyright holder and trademark owner of Linux, but because it’s released under a free license, it’s not proprietary software. The same goes for the openEHR Foundation and openEHR specs/artifacts/software.
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Greetings,
Just to clarify my understanding of your understanding of the term: would you say HL7 and Snomed CT are proprietary ?
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I think that definitions are generally valid.
I think that it is NOT a misuse.
openEHR has one owner.
CEN and ISO have members (countries) that are, all together, the owner.
This a huge difference, don’t you think?
Gerard
In the case of CEN, ISO, HL7, SNOMED all members are the owner.
Gerard
Hi Gerard,
Please stop trolling this list and do your homework. If you would have Googled on ‘open standards’ you would have found the following list of definitions of an open standard on Wiki.
Please tell us according to which of these definitions OpenEHR isn’t an open standard. If you can’t name one please shut up.
Cheers,
Stef
As said, publishing Open Source does not protect against IP.
The Open Source is just protection about the publishing itself, not about the ideas that are published.
There are rumors, and there are things that can be done.
For example, reasoning:
- AOM1.4 has been an ISO standard for years, so there is certainly no hidden IP.
- A statement on the Ocean website and the OpenEHR for all to see, and, saying that Ocean will never claim IP on the Reference Model and AOM.
That helps too.
Of course there can be others who want to claim IP.
Suddenly someone finding out that OpenEHR is very much like a patent he has.
You cannot be held responsible for that.
You never know which patents are out there. And you cannot always find them, you need to use the right keywords.
But this can happen to anyone. Also to ISO13606.
You can only speak for yourself and for Ocean.
But that should be enough to fight the rumors.
This is not true, Gerard, ISO has a statement on its website, that there can be IP which is not known about.
So, even an idea in a ISO standard can suddenly be owned by someone else.
ISO, as it states itself, cannot guarantee that a published standard is free to use without extra claims afterwards.
Bert
Gerard, I think you know, you be ignorant and warning at the same moment.
I have good news for you (because ISO13606 is using parts of the AOM) and for all of us.
There cannot any effective IP be claimed on OpenEHR and related technologies.
No. The Creative Commons licenses guarantees the free (as in beer) use and distribution of the specifications and the free (as in speech) use, distribution and improvement of the artifacts. This is what makes openEHR open and not proprietary. The organisation of the body holding the copyright and trademark is completely irrelevant.
In this particular case IP is held on specifications archetypes are making use of.
It is about ownership of IP of BOTH the Reference Model and the AOM
Gerard
Dear Stef,
About homework:
I’m not contending what you write.
This discussion is about who owns the IP.
And then my points about it are not with spoken.
Gerard
Thanks for your response.
Based on this response and another one you gave to Silje, do you think you could give a number of owners of a standard, which you’d consider to be sufficient to make a standard not proprietary? In layman terms: how many owners should a standard have so that you would not call it proprietary?
Gerard,
I am not sure why you are pursuing this line of argument. The only interesting question here is not about any 'owner', but about the 'credible maintainer'. For openly and freely licenced IP, this is all that practically matters - the capabilities and behaviours of the maintainer with respect to the IP. Do they provide issue reporting? Are they responsive? Do they have transparent governance? Do they issue new releases? Do they provide channels of communication to the community? And so on.
- thomas
My question was, what kind of IP.
Ownership is not a legal term, you need to specify that.
I explained there are two types of IP, which one is applies to OpenEHR?
1) Does the OpenEHR foundation hold copyright?
2) Does the OpenEHR foundation have patents which can be effected hold against the user?
Both questions have NO as an answer.
I explained in my previous message why I say this.
Is their another form of IP which works restrictive for the user?
Also this question has NO as an answer.
Thanks
Bert