Re: [ubl-lcsc] [code] ISO considering charging for commercial use of code lists

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 2003-09-22 10:27 +0800, Chin Chee-Kai wrote:
>Would LSC need to obtain some permission grants from UN/ECE
>on this matter?
>
>I could proceed with the UBL-isation of those codes if there's
>such writing of permission grants.

Perhaps our answer is to ship UBL engaged with the placebo (which we were 
planning anyway) and not ship a stock (which we had thought we would do) 
and package the stylesheet I wrote as part of the deliverable.

Ref http://www.ncits.org/archive/2003/in030467/in030467.htm in which ISO 
tells Oracle:
>Consequently if you load the list of country codes in a commercial 
>product, thus giving an added value to your product, it is normal that 
>ANSI asks you for the payment of a royalty fee. If you choose the other 
>possibility which is to let your customers download the country codes may 
>I suggest that you recommend that they download them from the ISO Web site 
>as this is the only valid source for ISO 3166 country codes.

We would be choosing the "other possibility" in which our implementers and 
our users utilize the list of country codes (however obtained, even if from 
the UN/ECE eDocs project) by using the stylesheet I wrote:  the two inputs 
are the placebo definition file and the URL of the UN/ECE file ... the 
implementer/user synthesizes the code list as a private-use definition file 
instead of finding it in the package as a stock definition file.

I'm still awaiting the Canadian representative to obtain an "official 
stance" so that Canada can officially respond (I'm coordinating this 
response; I'm an invited individual member on Canada's national Technical 
Committee on Information Technology), but the XML mail lists have been busy 
with people like David Carlisle discovering the URL above.

Note that ISO is saying "the list of country codes", not "the ISO files", 
so I think Sue's observation of the fact that we are obtaining them from 
UN/ECE is irrelevant.

In dribs and drabs I think it is becoming quite apparent that we may have 
to "pass the buck" on to our users regarding these values.

Still no conclusion ... but I thought it important to share the latest that 
I've seen elsewhere.

....................... Ken

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