ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)

Working in ETSI within an OSS context: Guidance and recommendations, including usage of OSS within ETSI Secretariat, adoption/usage of elements of OSS in the elaboration of ETSI Standards and adoption of ETSI Standards within the OSS communities

DSR/BOARD-00013

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 04-Dec-2012
• Technical Committee: BOARD - Board
• Current Stage: 12 - Completion
• Due Date: 19-Dec-2012
• Completion Date: 05-Dec-2012

Standards Content (Sample)

Special Report
Working in ETSI within an OSS context:
Guidance and recommendations,
including usage of OSS within ETSI Secretariat,
adoption/usage of elements of OSS in the elaboration
of ETSI Standards and adoption of ETSI Standards
within the OSS communities
2 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)

Reference
DSR/BOARD-00013
Keywords
open source, Open Source Software, OSS,
software
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© European Telecommunications Standards Institute 2012.
All rights reserved.
TM TM TM
DECT , PLUGTESTS , UMTS and the ETSI logo are Trade Marks of ETSI registered for the benefit of its Members.
TM
3GPP and LTE™ are Trade Marks of ETSI registered for the benefit of its Members and
of the 3GPP Organizational Partners.
GSM® and the GSM logo are Trade Marks registered and owned by the GSM Association.
ETSI
3 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)
Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 4
Foreword . 4
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 5
2 References . 5
2.1 Normative references . 5
2.2 Informative references . 5
3 Definitions and abbreviations . 6
3.1 Definitions . 6
3.2 Abbreviations . 7
4 The essence of Open Source Software (OSS) . 7
4.1 Description . 7
4.2 The OSS definition (taken from the Open Source Initiative) . 9
4.3 The "OSS molecule" . 10
5 The relationship between Standards and OSS . 10
5.1 Three major relationships to be analyzed . 10
5.2 Relationship #1: usage of OSS in ETSI Secretariat . 11
5.3 Relationship #2: adoption/usage of elements of OSS in the elaboration of ETSI Standards . 11
5.3.1 Scenario 1: consideration of reference material coming from an OSS-producing organization
(requirements, architecture, etc.) in the context of the elaboration of a Technical Specification . 12
5.3.2 Scenario 2: adoption of a set of interfaces (Open APIs) to become prescribed within an ETSI
Standard because of their particular relevance. 12
5.3.3 Scenario 3: inclusion of OSS source code in a Technical Specification . 12
5.4 Relationship #3: adoption of ETSI Standards within the OSS communities . 12
6 Guidance and Conclusions . 13
6.1 General Principles . 13
6.2 Working in ETSI within an OSS context . 13
Annex A: Supporting material . 15
A.1 OpenBSC . 15
A.2 Open IMS Core . 15
Annex B: Bibliography . 16
History . 17

ETSI
4 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)
Intellectual Property Rights
IPRs essential or potentially essential to the present document may have been declared to ETSI. The information
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found
in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in
respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web
server (http://ipr.etsi.org).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee
can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web
server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Foreword
This Special Report (SR) has been produced by the ETSI Board OPEN SOURCE group in the frame of the Strategic
Topics for 2011 with the intention to come to a conclusion. Approval was given by ETSI Board#81 on the defined
scope, reference was made to the ITEMS International study [i.1] commissioned by ETSI in 2006 and OCG has
contributed by reviewing the proposed scenarios.
Introduction
ICT is a fast growing industry involving global and local players from the IT, Telecommunications and Multimedia
sectors. The convergence factor is inducing changes in the business processes and models that impact strategies and
methods of industrial players and standards-makers as well.
One of the key elements in convergence is the growing role of software, in particular in the telecommunication sector
and in consumer electronics. Today, interfaces and components developments are mainly software-based.
Another major change is occurring in the software sector with the advent of Open Source Software. Originally initiated
by Internet R&D communities, Open Source now seems to pervade the whole ICT market and does benefit from the
support of major industrial/commercial players. Open Source Software is a different approach, which raises the question
of its use in conjuction with standards.
ETSI
5 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)
1 Scope
The present document describes high level guidance and recommendations for working in ETSI within an Open Source
Software (OSS) context, including usage of OSS within ETSI Secretariat, adoption/usage of elements of OSS in the
elaboration of ETSI Standards and adoption of ETSI Standards within the OSS communities.
Annex A provides additional information on supporting material.
2 References
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
reference document (including any amendments) applies.
Referenced documents which are not found to be publicly available in the expected location might be found at
http://docbox.etsi.org/Reference.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
2.1 Normative references
The following referenced documents are necessary for the application of the present document.
Not applicable.
2.2 Informative references
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
[i.1] Open Source impact on ICT Standardisation (ITEMS International study report).
NOTE: Available at http://www.etsi.org/website/document/workshop/sosinterop/sosinteropiiibackground01.pdf.
[i.2] Open Source Initiative: "This is a non-profit corporation with global scope formed to educate
about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different
constituencies in the open source community".
NOTE: Available at http://opensource.org/.
[i.3] OSMOCOM OpenBSC: "This is a project aiming to create a Free Software, (A)GPL-licensed
software implementations for the GSM/3GPP protocol stacks and elements".
NOTE: Available at http://openbsc.osmocom.org/trac/.
[i.4] Open IMS Core: "This is an Open Source implementation of IMS Call Session Control Functions
(CSCFs) and a lightweight Home Subscriber Server (HSS), which together form the core elements
of all IMS/NGN architectures as specified today within 3GPP, 3GPP2, ETSI TISPAN and the
PacketCable initiative".
NOTE: Available at http://openimscore.org/.
[i.5] ETSI Intellectual Property Rights Policy.
NOTE: Available at http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/document/Legal/ETSI IPR Policy November 2011.pdf.
ETSI
6 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)
[i.6] ETSI Guide on Intellectual Property Rights.
NOTE: Available at http://www.etsi.org/WebSite/document/Legal/ETSI Guide on IPRs November 2011.pdf.
[i.7] Free Software Foundation: This is a "non-profit with a worldwide mission to promote computer
user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users".
NOTE: Available at http://www.fsf.org/.
3 Definitions and abbreviations
3.1 Definitions
For the purposes of the present document, the terms and definitions given in the ETSI IPR policy [i.5], clause 15
(i.e. affiliate, equipment, essential, IPR, member, methods, standard) and the following apply:
Application Programming Interface (API): specification intended to be used as an interface by software components
to communicate with each other
NOTE: An API may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and variables.
compiler: computer program (or set of programs) that transforms source code written in a programming language (the
source language) into another computer language (the target language, often having a binary form known as object
code)
NOTE: The most common reason for wanting to transform source code is to create an executable program.
GNU: Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU Project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-
compatible software system" composed wholly of free software
interpreter: computer program that executes, i.e. performs, instructions written in a programming language
NOTE: An interpreter may be a program that either executes the source code directly, translates source code into
some efficient intermediate representation (code) and immediately executes this or explicitly executes
stored precompiled code made by a compiler which is part of the interpreter system.
machine code: (or machine language) system of impartible instructions executed directly by a computer's central
processing unit (CPU)
open source license: copyright license for open source software
Open Source Software (OSS): computer software that is available in source code form
NOTE: The source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under an
open-source license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the
software.
source code: any collection of computer instructions written using some human-readable computer language, usually as
text
Um interface: air interface for the GSM mobile telephone standard
NOTE: It is the interface between the mobile station and the Base Transceiver Station (BTS).
ETSI
7 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)
3.2 Abbreviations
For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply:
rd
3GPP 3 Generation Partnership Project
API Application Programming Interface
BTS Base Transceiver Station
CODEC Coder-DECoder
CPU Central Process Unit
CSCF Call Session Control Function
DECT Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone
DMR Digital Mobile Radio
DVB Digital Video Broadcasting
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute
FRAND Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory
GNU GNU's Not Unix
GPL GNU Public License
GSC Global Standards Collaboration
GSM Global System for Mobile communications
HSS Home Subscriber Server
ICT Information
IETF Internet Engineering Task Force
IMS Ip Multimedia Sub-system
INRIA National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (Institut National de Recherche
en Informatique et en Automatique)
IPR Intellectual Property Rights
IT Information Technology
ITU International Telecommunication Union
ITU-T International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector
LGPL Library General Public License
M2M Machine-to-Machine
MHP Multimedia Home Platform
NC Non-Commercial
NGN Next Generation Network
OCG Operational Co-ordination Group
OSS Open Source Software
RAND Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory
SR Special Report
TC Technical Committee
TETRA TErrestrial Trunked RAdio
TISPAN Telecommunications and Internet converged Services and Protocols for Advanced Networking
TS Technical Specification
TTCN Testing and Test Control Notation
TTCN-3 Testing and Test Control Notation version 3
XML Extensible Markup Language
4 The essence of Open Source Software (OSS)
4.1 Description
NOTE: This is taken from the Open Source impact on ICT Standardisation [i.1].
First of all, it should be underlined that Open Source does not mean free to use. Actually, Open Source is a complex
world with many kinds of licenses that can be free of charge but that always include complex provisions for both
parties.
ETSI
8 ETSI SR 002 960 V1.0.1 (2012-12)
Generally speaking, a license allows a holder of Intellectual Property on a technology to grant a second party the right
to use it. The license usually specifies the conditions under which the technology can be used or disseminated to third
parties, payments to the licensor, whether modifications are allowed, the risk and liability each party assumes,
representations and warranties, as well as provisions for support and maintenance.
The various kinds of Open Source Software licenses are not all interchangeable and they can be clearly identified
according to the following:
• Freeware involves no payment and allows the user to replicate and distribute the software freely.
• Shareware is provided free, but a voluntary payment is requested if the user puts the software to productive
use.
A source code license grants access to source code for the licensee. Open Source licenses can be defined as a specific
set of terms and conditions that meet the requirements summarized by the Open Source Initiative [i.2].
Similarly, Free Software licenses were defined by the Free Software Foundation [i.7] and they essentially include four
requirements:
• The right to access the source code - the right to get the sourc
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