Redefining interoperability -- the industry armchair in action

Foolishness reigns in the Old World. The "European Interoperability Framework" (EIF) is a document produced by an EU standards body that "defines generic standards with regard to organizational, semantic and technical aspects of interoperability, offering a comprehensive set of principles for European cooperation in eGovernment." (Mission statement from http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/)

While this seems a very good idea, the execution lacks a little: there is a massive push from the involved industries to bend the standards to their interest. Apparently, they have been successful: As this Computerworld UK article on varying degrees of openness in the EIF describes, in the 2009 draft an industry-sponsored armchair approach to interoperability has prevailed over very strict language from 2004. The initial document explicitly required that interoperability be based on open standards, the requirements for which being:

  • adoption or maintenance by a non-profit organization with a democratic decision process
  • availability of the published standard for a maximally nominal fee with a royalty-free IP model
  • no constraints on the re-use of the standard.

The 2009 version backs away from this by redefining interoperability. According to the new draft, it can also be achieved with closed standards as long as everybody uses the closed standard. Karsten Gerloff, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), comments: “This new draft is a threat to the interoperability of European eGovernment services, and a recipe to maintain and even increase vendor lock-in.” (http://www.eeiplatform.com/1611/protests-over-new-draft-of-eus-interoperability-instrument/ as of Dec 8 2009).

What's interesting about this from a 202 angle is how it accentuates the authority aspects of both defining terms and of achieving interoperability: In this case, he who can influence the definition, can later dictate what standards are to be used.