[Openstandaarden] RAND licensing & OASIS

[Peter Strickx]

The PICTS (Permanent ICT Steering group) from the Belgian Federal 
Government is on the verge of
accepting OASIS as a 'recognized Standards organization' (ie. standards 
from OASIS would be 'recommended' standards and become mandatory 
standards within a 3-6 month time frame). However, an essential element 
in our 'standards policy' is the availability of  open source  and free 
software implementations of  the approved standards (or at least the 
possibility to have them available as open source/free software in the 
future).  If the new  RAND licensing scheme hinders open source and/or 
free software implementations we will no longer adopt OASIS standards as 
'recognized' standards within our organization.


Best regards,

Peter Strickx
Chief Technology Officer FEDICT
Federal Government Belgium