Harvard/NIST Project on Standards and Information Infrastructure

From: BRIAN KAHIN <KAHIN[_at_]HULAW1.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 09:11:34 -0500 (EST)

      "STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT AND INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE"

                 Call for Papers and Information


	The complexity of information systems and the need for

extensibility, interoperability, and scalability make standards for digital information and information technology essential to the rapid development of information infrastructure. With information technology enabling and reshaping large segments of the economy -- manufacturing, electronic commerce, health care -- the importance of standards is recognized not only by the technology-based firms developing the infrastructure but by the wide variety of information providers, content integrators, professionals, and others who will use the infrastructure. Accordingly, the Administration's National Information Infrastructure initiative identifies promotion of seamless, interactive, user-driven operation as a basic policy goal and promises "to review and clarify the standards process to speed NII applications."

        At the same time, intense competition in the private sector is moving the development of information standards closer to the marketplace. Standards are increasingly set not by traditional standards bodies but by dominant firms, consortia, and ad hoc alliances. Standards, platforms, specifications, and standards processes and proceedings are used in increasingly sophisticated ways within a variety of corporate strategies. For example, some companies choose to make their technologies more "open" than the competition, balancing the opportunity to lead the market with the benefits of asserting strict controls over intellectual property. Some groups have developed requirements-based "requests for technology" (RFTs) as a means for accelerating adoption of a common platform, promoting use of common specifications, or simply advancing dialog about common requirements.

        While high-tech industries are normally wary of government efforts to mandate standards, many believe that the government should have an oversight or contingency role. This is especially true with respect to telecommunications, a heavily regulated area where the government has played an active role (albeit through an independent agency, the FCC) in ensuring interoperability and connectivity. With the growth of content industries dependent on the new information infrastructure, the case for federal oversight of network-related standards can be made on the basis of common carriage principles, regardless of the shift away from rate-of-return regulation.

        The government is also involved with information technology standards in important non-regulatory capacities: as a major user, as a funder of basic and precompetitive research, and as a funder of special-purpose infrastructure. Sometimes these interests are not coordinated, as has been the case of data networking protocols. NIST recently constituted a panel to review the government's involvement in establishing network requirements and standards, which, in the near term, will focus on reconciling the use of GOSIP and Internet protocol suites within the federal government. However, the panel sets the stage for developing general principles for the federal role in standards development.

        While standards development contributes to the development of information infrastructure, the reverse is also true: Standards development also benefits from the use of networks for electronic mail, remote file transfer, and advanced management of distributed information. Geographic and cost barriers to participation are reduced, resulting in a fuller, more democratic flow of ideas. Dissemination of draft standards is virtually instantaneous and cost-free, which speeds the standards development process and allows it to be more staged or iterative. This, in turn, can speed product development and testing for interoperability.

        Finally, there is growing awareness and debate about the relationship between standards and intellectual property, especially in two areas: the susceptibility of de facto standards to control through copyright and the vulnerability of standards development to preemption by broad process patents and to inadvertent incorporation of patented processes. Here, too, the government plays a regulatory role, albeit historically one with a very different orientation: balancing free market principles with laws to encourage innovation and original expression. The uncertain and controversial application of patent and copyright to digital information, together with the growing convergence of industries and institutions within an increasingly interdependent infrastructure, make this a complex and critical area.

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        The Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the National Institute of Standards and Technology announce a study on current directions in development of standards for information infrastructure, the changing economics and political economy of information standards development, and the role of the government in supporting such standards. The workshop, to be in held in Washington in June 1994, will draw on experts in the range of relevant specialities -- information policy, intellectual property, economics of standards and networks -- as well as leaders in information technology consortia and leading-edge standards efforts such as PDES/STEP. The workshop and the resulting proceedings and supplementary material will illuminate the strategic environment for standards development, help map and evaluate the options for the federal government, and lay a foundation for future research and policy development.

        We seek new research, information on work in progress, stakeholder perspectives, and other information that can help inform and guide the development of public policy in this area. We are especially interested in work and information that can be reported, critiqued, and published in the course of this project. Potential workshop participants and other interested parties are urged to submit papers or abstracts of ongoing work by March 15, 1994.

        The study focuses on the relationship between standards and information infrastructure and the role of federal government in advancing information infrastructure standards. Relevant subjects include:

• cross-industry coordination and meta-architecture design
• information and network economics in information infrastructure
• appropriability of externalities and the case for government intervention
• defining and evaluating "openness" of information technologies and standards
• agency participation in industry standards processes
• antitrust law and the economics of information infrastructure
• impact of patents on nonproprietary standards and standards processes
• copyright and de facto standards
• international coordination of industry standards processes
• international coordination of infrastructure standards and standards policy
• the role of consortia, associations, and other industry groups in standards development
• user involvement in standards development and standards policy
• the federal role in conformance-testing and certification
• standards and procurement policy
• standards development as precompetitive research
• typology of standards, specifications, platforms, and architecture

Please submit papers, abstracts, position statements, and other relevant information to:

Brian Kahin
Director, Information Infrastructure Project Science, Technology and Public Policy Program John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-8903
Fax: 617-495-5776
kahin[_at_]harvard.edu

Authors of research papers selected for presentation at the workshop will be notified in early April. Final drafts of accepted papers will be due on May 23. Received on Mon Jan 31 1994 - 14:13:21 GMT