This is classic regulation by technocrats as opposed to technologists.
Flawed reasoning among technocrats is that software can simply be made interoperable.
What they fail to understand is that interoperability is a two-sided process, requiring cooperation and collaboration between two (or more) parties.
And yes - it’s a process, with a cost.
Software cannot simply be made “interoperable” with all possible future permutations of other (often competing) software.
To imagine that you can demand all software is “interoperable” is literally to impose unbounded cost on all participants, because they cannot know how many other parties they will be forced to cooperate and collaborate with.
This is the kind of financial calculus that only exists in the world of bureaucrats (with their endless supply of public funding, and their never-ending remit).
To businesses, on the other hand, cost is existential.
> Flawed reasoning among technocrats is that software can simply be made interoperable.
What they fail to understand is that interoperability is a two-sided process
1. Data that software operates on can easily be made interoperable. Even trivially. There's no end to standards around that
2. Yes, it's a "two-sided process" in the sense that companies go out of their way to make any and all data as inaccessible as possible
What if I claim need your data in a particular form in order to “interoperate” with you?
Will the EU legally compel you to give me the data in the form I want?
Or perhaps you’ll explain that raw data is raw data. In which case, is the EU legally compelling you to give away all your raw data to anyone that might want to cooperate / compete / sabotage / spy on you? If not anyone, what’s the minimum bar that a counterparty has to satisfy to get access to all your data? Who judges when they meet this bar? The European Commission? Judges in the ECJ? For every interop in the cross-product of all software on the market?
Are the flaws in this regulation not blindingly obvious to everyone in this community? Am I going mad here?
> What if I claim need your data in a particular form in order to “interoperate” with you?
Oh. Malicious compliance is an art form. Just look at GDPR.
Doesn't mean that interoperability is somehow hard.
> Are the flaws in this regulation not blindingly obvious to everyone in this community? Am I going mad here?
You'd go much less mad if you read the regulation in question which I doubt you have. As a rule, the madder a person is about some EU regulation, the less likely they are to have read it.
Instead you rely on media headlines and misinterpretations.
(Note: I haven't read the act yet, but I've yet to see an act people are in arms about that doesn't actually answer most questions in the text of the act itself or in the accompanying documents)
> What if I claim need your data in a particular form in order to “interoperate” with you?
I read this as:
rzwitserloot is the operator of a SaaS service that has a bunch of data. Let's say, photos.
cbeach uses this law to request this data from rzwitserloot, and asks if it can be in .g3 format. It's _a_ format. Let's posit for a moment that it's burdened by patents, is unwieldy (produces really large files), converters are hard to find, and so on.
And your point is: HAHA! Because of dumb technocrats, GOTCHA!
And you'd be wrong. That's not what the law says.
I would tell you: Here are the files in jpg2k format, bzipped. These are common formats, they are how we store and use them, and it is a reasonable interpretation of the rule that I must provide this data in no undue delay in 'industry standard' standard formats. If you don't like it, sue me. And if you sue me, you would lose.
> s the EU legally compelling you to give away all your raw data to anyone that might want to cooperate / compete / sabotage / spy on you?
The exact data you need to provide is limited to that data which you host that is (also) owned by the requestor. I can't just ask, I dunno, facebook for the firehose of _everything by everybody_, I can only ask it for data that _I_ contributed to the platform. Other rules put limits on facebook contractually claiming ownership. Using this law to 'compete / sabotage / spy' is therefore difficult, and if it _is_ possible to meaningfully compete/sabotage/spy by using this law, then I posit that the service is rentseeking and needs to die. It is taking the 'value' of hoarding its network effect over others which is parasitising value out of the community and thus does not serve the broader interests. I can see a world where you want to financially incentivize companies to create network effect benefits, because you need to bankroll the creation if the system somehow, but doing so by giving its operators forever-rights on rentseeking the value created is perhaps a bit much. We have been doing that the past 20 or so and the results are catastrophic, which proves the point.
I _want_ a different attempt at it, and if that risks the pendulum swinging too far the other way, so be it. The EU and other law bodies have been practically screaming from the rooftops that they aren't happy with what IT companies are doing specifically in regards to e.g. hoarding their control of data to squash competition and reasonable use by the populace for years now, and they aren't moving.
This is how the world is supposed to work. You might want to check how e.g. the movie rating system came to pass. There wasn't one, the citizenry wanted one (we can debate whether the citizenry was correct in wanting that, not the point - they did), government threatened to write a law, and the business got the message and set up their own system. Government dutifully responded by not making a law.
When businesses start ignoring the strong hinting by government that laws will occur if they don't get in line, i.e. if they think they get to lord it over the populace and fall back to libertarian maxims to avoid all repercussion, the system fails. And here you are, advocating for just that.
This american defeatism about using laws and therefore just going with 'let the free market' decide is toxic and you need to cut it out. You can always find a case where a well meaning law has resulted in a disaster _and_ the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of the authors of the law, just as easily as finding a case where lack of laws has led to unbridled massive export of significant externalities to society and it is ridiculous that no law exists.
> Am I going mad here?
Well, take your pick. Mad, difficulty with understanding basic reading, or trolling. You're guilty of one of those 3.
Flawed reasoning among technocrats is that software can simply be made interoperable.
What they fail to understand is that interoperability is a two-sided process, requiring cooperation and collaboration between two (or more) parties.
And yes - it’s a process, with a cost.
Software cannot simply be made “interoperable” with all possible future permutations of other (often competing) software.
To imagine that you can demand all software is “interoperable” is literally to impose unbounded cost on all participants, because they cannot know how many other parties they will be forced to cooperate and collaborate with.
This is the kind of financial calculus that only exists in the world of bureaucrats (with their endless supply of public funding, and their never-ending remit).
To businesses, on the other hand, cost is existential.