[Techtalk] Open Standard for Video Streaming

[Alvin Goats]

> 
> On a side note, itm ade me start thinking of the necessity of open
> standards.


Yep, or at least well published standards accessable to everyone at VERY
low cost or free. ISO, ANSI and the AIAG (Automotive Industry Action
Group) charge too much for the standards. 

QIC (Quarter Inch Cartridge), some of JEDEC (Joint Electron Device
Engineering Council), EIA (Electronic Industries Association) have some
standards that are free, and others that they charge for, but generally
at a reasonable cost.

And then there are the various military standards. The US military
standards are typically free and cover a great range of things, from
clothing and food to computers and weapons. 

What most people don't know, is that the world wide semiconductor and
electronic device manufacturers use the US military standard MIL-STD-883
for inspecting, testing, acceptance testing test methods. They
standardized the test methods so the test results were repeatable and
actually meant something. Mechanical shock, random vibration,
temperature shock, temperature cycling, hermetic testing (measure of the
quality of a sealed part to not leak) and more are used by telecom,
automotive, commercial, medical and military manufactures alike. I have
a spec on device packages from a few different Japanese companies that
reference the MIL-STD-883 for the test methods. 

So, as far as an "open source" standard, I'd be happy for a publicly
available, free standard from anyone that has the clout to enforce the
standard (and much of the internet is governed by US military and
federal specs, being born of Mil-net, UUNET and FidoNet). 

When politicians and companies get involved, that's when the
incompatabilities come to the forefront, each just *has* to do things
their own way. 


> With biotechnology making good progress and all, I don't
> want my gene map to be stored on an Oracle database and give
> Oracle unrestricted access to it, or probably, one fine day, say that it's
> retracting all it's products..and poof!  there goes my genetic secrets :-D

You definitely don't want the medical or life sciences professions to
set the rules! In a study performed in the early 1980's, it was found
that the life sciences (botany, biology, zoology, medicine, et al) had
the least amount of religious believers. That includes christian,
budhist, jew, muslim, hindu and whatever else. 90 percent (at that time)
were atheist or agnostic and had ethics of less than honorable quality.
On the flip side, the AIP (American Institute of Physics) polled ALL the
members of the physics community, physics students, physics teachers,
professors, physicists in industry and military. They found that 90%
plus had some religious faith (contrary to what the media suggests).
Ethics is high, after all, we are fooling around with the most power
things that can be used for mass destruction, as well as aid to mankind. 

I think it should be more of military standard so that violation can
have military consequences. And that doesn't necessarily mean a military
strike, but to hack a military site is inviting espionage charges and
federal sentencing to federal prisons. Not so nice a thing to have
happen to you. Commercial or open standards on genetic data just means
that a cracker can crack the computer data base and run off with the
data and not face that stiff a penalty, a company can sell off the
information like they currently do our internet profiles and get away
with it as they do now. I really like the idea of mil spec for biotech.
Ft. Leavenworth EARNED it's reputation and the fear of it is sound. 

Alvin