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0 pointsysofunny2y ago0 comments

meaning that in practice we would have to fundamentally tweak how capitalism (maybe?) works somehow

in the mean time keep paying taxes, rent, subscription, and utility bills.

i'm not even sure it's capitalism that needs to get modified? maybe it's something about how private/public property works that is cleary off the mark and needs updates?

I'd argue that in the internet specifically, open sourced implementations of the protocols are the backbone of everything not closed proprietary specs; aren't most internet specifications open?

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hobofan2y ago

In the purest of the pure internet, sure (depending on what level of the stack you look at). There you of course have other problems(?) like the fact that most browser-related standards are essentially steered by Google (via its dominance in browser market share). From the parts of the W3C that I've observed, I'd also not characterize them as a functioning standards body (I'm not sure they've published anything meaningful in the last decade).

But in many spaces where you interact with the "real world" you very quickly make contact with proprietary ISO standards (e.g. CAD, architecture). I'd argue that this is one of the big contributing factors to why there isn't more open source penetration in CAD, as central standards like STEP[2] would require contributors to purchase a number of ISO standards.

There are also some spaces where proprietary standards exist (usually when open implementations precede the standardized ones) like SQL[0], but the proprietary nature is ignored, as most people don't need their SQL implementations certified. AMD can't do that as they need to keep a friendly relation with the HDMI Forum for official certification.

There are also some ISO standards (associated with JTC1) that are open access[1], which seems like a decent model. I'm not sure who usually foots the bill for the whole standardization process here though.

[0]: https://www.iso.org/standard/76583.html

[1]: https://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/in...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10303

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