Question

I have some software which we added an open common file format (.iwb) to. The government organisation that initiated that work has been cut in the cutbacks.

Now a not for profit organisation has taken up the mantle, however its going to cost and once you pay you are not allowed to reveal the “materials” you gain.

http://www.imsglobal.org/iwbcff/jointheIWBCFFIalliance.cfm

I understand people need to be paid but the whole not sharing thing makes it feel like its going against what a standard is meant for.

What’s a good strategy:

1. Pay up and shut up (there might be plenty of closed standards
   that work in this way)
2. Fork the standard to an organisation that will not require people to pay to read it
3. Drop the file format
4. Stay behind the curve and reverse engineer the files

Answer 1

Any standard that is not freely accessible is no standard at all but is instead a proprietary format. I’d say either:

1. petition them to open the standard up
2. Drop your support for it (and tell your customers why you have to)
3. Fork an earlier open version and create a free version of the standard

Paying for access to a standard sounds like a horrible idea because:

1. It encourages this behavior
2. It’s likely to just be wasted money because others won’t want to pay either, and a standard used by no one is not a standard.