Re: Moving goalposts, estoppel and antitrust law. (derives from Re: Chess symbols, ZWJ, Opentype and holly type ornaments.)

From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Fri Jun 21 2002 - 17:54:13 EDT


William,

> >Speaking here as an editor of the Unicode Standard, I do not
> >find the word "published" in section 13.5 of the book.
>
> In section 13.5 of the file ch13.pdf obtained from the Unicode web site on
> 28 May 2002 there is the following sentence.
>
> quote
>
> Assignments of character semantics in this sub-area could be completely
> internal, hidden from the end users, and used only for vendor-specific
> application support, or they could be published as vendor-specific character
> assignments available to applications and end users.
>
> end quote
>
> That sentence, in section 13.5 of chapter 13 of the Unicode specification,
> contains the word published.

Yes, you are correct. My mistake. I read over the section before
I wrote my note, but I apparently read right by that instance of
"published" in the middle of the paragraph and missed it.

By the way, that is in a discussion of the Corporate Use subarea and
was aimed at the kind of users which you are not. The kind of work that
you (and such registries as Conscript) do is end-user assignment of
private-use characters. You omitted quoting the text just preceding
what you did quote:

<quote>
Systems vendors and/or software developers may need to reserve
some private-use characters for internal use by their software.
The Corporate Use subarea is the preferred area for such reservations.
</quote>

> >Since -- despite the explicit text that follows in that section -- some
> >people seem to be getting the wrong idea about private-use character
> >assignments as a step towards standardization, it is quite likely that
> >the editorial committee will be rewriting that section for Unicode 4.0,
> >to provide further clarification for users.
> >
>
> Oh, do they so seem?

Oh, yes they do so seem. Some people (I won't name any names) are
getting the wrong idea about private-use character assignments as
a step towards standardization, and the text does need clarification
on that point.

> Or is it Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh they seem to think that the specification means
> what it states rather than what big business would now like it to mean so
> the goalposts will have to be moved in case ordinary people think that they
> can have a say in standards work and the "not representing an organization"
> discrimination might get abolished?

Consider the possiblity that you may be way out in left field here.

>
> I feel that any attempt to delete the word published from the standard would
> need to be investigated for possible antitrust law violation. As the
> standards need to get past ISO and that has, I think, on it delegations
> exercising powers delegated by national governments, then European Union
> Antitrust Law may well protect at least those of us within the European
> Union against such goalpost moving. I am unsure about whether since the
> Maastricht Treaty whether the laws have been recodified, yet in terms of the
> Treaty of Rome, the relevant Articles are Article 85, Article 86 and Article
> 90.

ISO/IEC 10646 is developed in ISO, strictly following JTC1 procedures.

ISO has no say whatsoever in the text that the editors of the Unicode
Standard write in the book which the Unicode Consortium publishes.

You don't know what you are talking about, and blustering about antitrust
law isn't making your position any more convincing.

> The word published is in the standard, that
> is the opportunity which has been provided and that has lead to my
> publishing my collections of code points. When people sit around a table to
> discuss the possibility of revising the standard, they need to remember that
> they are there with certain powers yet certain obligations to the public as
> well.
>
> I have exercised the rights granted by the specification and published some
> code point assignments.

Your right to publish whatever you damn please is granted by the
Constitution of the United States (in this country) and by comparable
laws and treaty rights in the European Union. It is not "granted" by
the Unicode Standard, nor does any language the editors of the Unicode
Standard put in or remove from its text impinge in any way upon your rights
to publish.

>
> http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/golden.htm
>
> I have the opportunity to try to make founts and to try to distribute them,
> perhaps trying to sell some of the founts if I choose, perhaps as shareware,
> perhaps otherwise.
>
> I say that the use of the word published in the Unicode specification is
> clear and that in the event of any attempt to remove that provision from the
> standard that estoppel would apply.

Michael Everson said it more succinctly. But this argument is just bologna.

A. The sentence you cite is not a "provision" of the standard.
B. Even if it were removed, that would in no way constrain what
   you could publish.
C. There is no intention to remove it, anyway, since the Unicode
   Consortium does encourage people to publish their lists of
   corporate private-use characters -- as witness Adobe's publication
   of its list of usage. That wasn't the confusion in the text on
   private-use characters that I was referring to in the first place.

>
> I feel that it is also important to remember that the various fount
> technologies are not international standards and so claims by others that I
> should not be defining code point meanings in the Private Use Area
> (exercising rights granted by an international standard)
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

A. The Unicode Standard is not an "international standard" by ISO
   definition. You are confusing it with ISO/IEC 10646.
B. It isn't granting you rights, in any case.

> The specification says what it says. If it is to be changed for clarity
> that is one thing, yet if a claim of changes for the sake of clarity is used
> as a smokescreen for moving the goalposts so as to marginalize opportunities
> of individuals because it is inconvenient to big business then that is
> another matter entirely. Claims that people did not understand it properly
> can be used to help people, not to move the goalposts.

I suggest you climb down off your high horse before you bang the
top of your head on those goalposts on your way through.

--Ken

>
> William Overington
>
> 21 June 2002



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