--- Clemens Fruhwirth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:57:07 -0700 (PDT), > C Y <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I decided that (for reasons explained on the wiki page) it was > > impractical to continue with the idea of a new specification as > > such, so this project can be removed from the list. > > > > I'm still interested in the idea of a literate programming lisp > > implementation, but it will have to be done some other way than by > > incorporating the dpANS3 text. > > I'm sorry, I can't follow the argumentation at all.
Sorry about that. I didn't put all of my reasoning on that page. I'll try to explain below. Mostly it's just that if there are laws of any sort restricting behavior in this area, I don't have time or training to understand them properly. > The linked legal documents linked seem to explicitly protect against > anti-trust laws brought against standard developing > organisations. With limited/restricted membership to such > organisations an outside-competitor might claim that there is an > "unfair" competition. That brings up several other questions. What is a "standards development organization" under this law? Does it need to be a legal entity (say, a non-profit) that registers as such? What are the consequences for a group that does not so register or doesn't exist as a legal entity - do they have protection as well? I understood this law was supposed to increase protection, but that doesn't (unfortunately) answer all the questions that need answering. Only a lawyer could answer any of those questions with anything like an informed opinion. I certainly cannot. Also, based on several snippits I have heard over the years, the issue of legal action against members of standards creating bodies was a real one during the original ANSI process. No such process is entirely peaceful, but since there appears to be some history of potential willingness to use legal weapons (I doubt it actually occurred, but I have no details) I prefer not to enter such an arena. It might indeed be safe (or could be made safe if some non-profit entity formed and registered itself) but I can't know for sure and I have no financial resources to hire a lawyer to find out for sure. I don't know how the commercial lisp vendors would react to a community based effort to create an updated ANSI spec. Hopefully it would be a positive response, but there is no guarantee and they DO have financial resources if the decide they disapprove of the process. And even if we ARE in the clear, a legal challenge would have to be defended and that costs time and $$. I don't know how to get an answer out of them on such a matter, even if they would be willing to provide one. > Would you mind to give a short summary about the contacts made so > far? I have communicated with Steven M. Haflich who was the last NCITS/J13 chair (http://www.franz.com/~smh/J13/) and there was a rather lively IRC discussion some time back - I can try and dig up the date if that's of any interest. I have not started contacting the folks listed in the ANSI draft spec yet. It is possible that I am being overly cautious but a few of the remarks I have heard indicate that the original ANSI process was the source of a lot of friction, and I am wary of stirring up such a response again - this time directed at the community based process. Ways to proceed: 1. Assume it is safe to go ahead, assume no one will worry about dpANS3 being used, and just start making a new document 2. Assume it is safe to go ahead, start contacting (or trying to) all known contributors to dpANS3. 3. Study the laws as best we can, do whatever is needed (non-profit, registering, what have you) to become a legal SDO, assume no one will worry about dpANS3 being used, and just start making a new document 4. Study the laws as best we can, do whatever is needed (non-profit, registering) to become a legal SDO, start contacting (or trying to) all known contributors to dpANS3. 5. Somehow get a legal opinion of all of the above. 6. Try and organize with commercial lisp vendors and/or universitites to get enough members back onto NCITS/J13, and try to produce an update to the ANSI specification. Looking at the NCITS/J13 informal archive above would seem to suggest that more is needed than just a minimum number of members, but if it could be done that would be the "formal" way to advance things. I was hoping it would just be a case of contact everyone, get their OK, and proceed. It looks like it won't be that simple, and I don't have the resources for any more major efforts. :-( Cheers, CY __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Gardeners mailing list [email protected] http://www.lispniks.com/mailman/listinfo/gardeners
