[fsf-members] IETF and IEEE. And GNU? Is there a relationship between open standards and free software?

[Alessandro Vesely]

Hi all,

I've been reading miscellaneous stuff from GNU and from IETF for a few
years now.  I never came across statements that depict a relationship
between them, albeit occasional mention of each other.

GNU projects follow IETF standards (Emacs MIME comes to mind),
possibly preferring them over, say, ITU-T ones.  IETF standards need
implementations (the "running code" part) which is often open source,
possibly Free Software.

No official statement ever seemed to be needed, until now.

Now there is this IEEE push toward some "modern paradigm" of open
standards.  They had the IETF and other bodies sign a document.

The next url is to the message to the ietf mailing list where the IETF
chair announces the last document version, with the phrase
"(especially where open source is commonplace)" removed:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg74754.html

Next, the IEEE site where they announce the "modern paradigm":
http://open-stand.org/

Why don't they want to mention open source?  AFAIK, Free Software has
played an essential role in the development of the Internet.  I'd be
glad to know your opinion on that.

Thank you for considering this question
Ciao
Ale