One of the new terms you will probably hear about a lot is Mount Rainier, the new standard for writing CD-RW's that should enable everyone to use a CD-RW as a HD.
As with a lot of standards, developers of the standards ask license fees for those who want to implent their standard in their software, but the Mount Rainier developers have agreed to ask open source developers to sign an agreement and then they will be able to implent it for free.
"The objective was to ensure there were no licensing fees for the most basic parts," Hedrick told us. "My concern was making sure that simple operations needed to use Mount Rainier devices and create Mount Rainier media were open-specced so they work in native format. It wasn't open to begin with." |
Agreement was finally reached to open the specifications at a meeting last week.
"The physical layer document will be licensed to anyone who signs an adoptor's agreement, royalty-free" says Gudmundsson. "The command set was part of the MMC standard, and open document anyway"
At issue was the clarification of the boundaries of what should be published as an open spec and what should be published under license from the Mount Rainier Working Group.
"Microsoft stated, if I were to bypass the any parts of licensed documents, then I'd have four 900lb gorillas on my back," said Hedrick. "That's OK. I carry an elephant gun."
Source: TheRegister
