I was looking for an ISO standard and could find no free (illegal or otherwise) source for the standard (found outdated editions, but no way to know details of changes in the latest version). Was kind of amazed how well they police that, given that it's just a few MBs of a PDF as compared a multi-gig movie. $230+ for the document. My search efforts were admittedly limited to google and duckduckgo.
The particular standard was ISO 18004, after reading yesterday's article regarding reading a blurred QR code. Was basically looking to do a hobby project reinventing the wheel of making a QR code generator and then seeing what improvements to the standard might be possible and still compatible. Wanted to work from original source material, but wasn't looking to spend $200+ before even getting started. Found a 2006 (2015 is the latest) edition, so just going with it.
It felt strange and a little wrong to have the official standard for QR codes be closed source. Until 2015 when Denso Wave's patents expired, you actually were only licensed to use their patents on the tech so long as you followed the official spec 100%. Interesting position to be in: either risk patent infringement or buy a spec to ensure compatibility.
If my project gets anywhere, I'll happily spend the money on it. Was basically just annoying to hit that hurdle coming out of the gate. Some ISO specs are free, but only handful of the thousands in effect. And I'm not so idealistic to think that the ISO org itself can run on goodwill and attaboys, but there are known solutions with commercial vs. personal licenses.
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Regarding the article at hand -- we absolutely need open access to standards in order to repair our devices. How can you repair or test an interface if you don't have access to the specs on how exactly it's supposed to work?
The particular standard was ISO 18004, after reading yesterday's article regarding reading a blurred QR code. Was basically looking to do a hobby project reinventing the wheel of making a QR code generator and then seeing what improvements to the standard might be possible and still compatible. Wanted to work from original source material, but wasn't looking to spend $200+ before even getting started. Found a 2006 (2015 is the latest) edition, so just going with it.
It felt strange and a little wrong to have the official standard for QR codes be closed source. Until 2015 when Denso Wave's patents expired, you actually were only licensed to use their patents on the tech so long as you followed the official spec 100%. Interesting position to be in: either risk patent infringement or buy a spec to ensure compatibility.
If my project gets anywhere, I'll happily spend the money on it. Was basically just annoying to hit that hurdle coming out of the gate. Some ISO specs are free, but only handful of the thousands in effect. And I'm not so idealistic to think that the ISO org itself can run on goodwill and attaboys, but there are known solutions with commercial vs. personal licenses.
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Regarding the article at hand -- we absolutely need open access to standards in order to repair our devices. How can you repair or test an interface if you don't have access to the specs on how exactly it's supposed to work?