Stream: IPS
Topic: urn:iso:std:iso:3166 license
Patrick Werner (Sep 02 2019 at 10:27):
As IPS requires urn:iso:std:iso:3166 as country string in http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/ips/StructureDefinition/Patient-uv-ips i wondered about the needed license.
As far as i understand i need to pay ISO for the CodeSystem. This seems unusual to me as this is an UV IG which usually doesn't use paid CodeSystems (e.g. Snomed).
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 02 2019 at 14:30):
@Julie James Do you know what the rules are here? (I've never heard of anyone having to pay for a license for the country codes...)
Rob Hausam (Sep 02 2019 at 14:39):
I don't think that there is a fee for non-commercial use of the codes (not sure about commercial use). But the only specific information I've found on it so far is this very old (2003) discussion.
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 02 2019 at 14:43):
Commercial use matters. And agree that HL7 international specs should never require binding to value sets with associated costs.
Rob Hausam (Sep 02 2019 at 14:43):
Yes, we need to investigate.
Patrick Werner (Sep 02 2019 at 14:44):
will make a comment in the current IPS ballot
Rob Hausam (Sep 02 2019 at 14:45):
@Ted Klein?
Rob Hausam (Sep 02 2019 at 14:45):
Thanks, @Patrick Werner.
Julie James (Sep 03 2019 at 11:29):
If you want "the standard" then you have to buy it, like any other ISO standard document, and it is yours for "single use". But that's not at all helpful for a code system. ISO will supply you with "the country codes as a code system" in their "Country Codes Collection" for a fee which you can use "in your system" (see https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html). So I think I would question each implementer: Where are you getting your source content from (and therefore what URL are you using to identify it)? If you are sourcing from ISO, then yes, you will be paying for it. If you're not sourcing from ISO, what exactly are you sourcing from??? Your own interpretation of ISO 3166? Should you be doing that?
Patrick Werner (Sep 03 2019 at 12:30):
The (canonical) URL to identify it is always: urn:iso:std:iso:3166.
Ideally i would like to source it from a CodeSystem published by HL7 or anyone else making it available for free.
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 03 2019 at 14:51):
ISO country codes are used as part of ISO language codes which are used throughout the web - and I'm pretty sure no-one pays for them when they set up a website that declares en-CA or en-UK. The codes are publicly listed on Wikipedia - pretty sure they don't pay either. The behavior and use of the code system seems to be like it's in the public domain. Are we sure there aren't special rules here @Julie James? Are there any alternatives that can be used that don't cost $300/year? My read is that the $300/year is paying to get the update notifications, not to use the codes themselves?
Julie James (Sep 03 2019 at 15:15):
Unfortunately "just because no one pays for them" doesn't mean that is the proper way to do things., And because custom and practice is "we all copy them from Wikipedia" (and yes, I've done that too, in times past) doesn't necessarily make it right. I'm happy to write to ISO officially and ask - but beware, you might not like the answer! It is fairly clear to me that ISO expect folk to use the County Codes Collection and pay for the privilege of doing so. That may be naivety on their part, but that's how it reads to me. I can find some evidence that the two letter codes may be used FoC for "non-commercial purposes" but no sense of what that means in practice.
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 03 2019 at 15:39):
Are there any alternatives?
Patrick Werner (Sep 03 2019 at 15:50):
i checked some alternatives: IOC, FIFA and ICANN country codes (ccTLD). The ICANN code list is the most complete as they are derived from the ISO codes.
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 03 2019 at 15:57):
Are the ICANN codes freely available?
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 03 2019 at 15:57):
(And are the code values equivalent to the ISO ones?)
Patrick Werner (Sep 03 2019 at 15:59):
ICANN codes are available here: https://icannwiki.org/Country_code_top-level_domain and are CC BY 4.0 licensed
Giorgio Cangioli (Sep 03 2019 at 16:03):
If we have a licence issue with ISO 3166 (and in this case also with ISO 639). I believe that we have in general issues with BCP 47 (used as well in the IPS). I don't think that just moving to ICANN will solve this. :-(
Patrick Werner (Sep 03 2019 at 16:10):
(And are the code values equivalent to the ISO ones?)
yes. TLD codes are the two letter ISO code.
Only difference: GB vs UK, and Yemen is missing from the ICANN list
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 03 2019 at 16:10):
If ICANN is CC BY then either they've resolved the licensing issue with ISO or they're on the hook, not us.
Patrick Werner (Sep 03 2019 at 16:14):
yes there seems to be way to solve this.
Rob Hausam (Sep 03 2019 at 18:28):
So it's not clear to me yet if we need/want to go with the ICANN codes, or leave things as they are? I assume we can have some further discussion on this tomorrow on the IPS call.
Lloyd McKenzie (Sep 03 2019 at 18:35):
If there's a cost to the ISO ones and the ICANN ones are free, I don't think you can leave things as they are
Alexander Zautke (Sep 03 2019 at 20:35):
The use of the ICANN list would only introduce all kinds of messy edge cases which would require some manual maintenance of the CodeSystem: 1. Would need to remove all codes which are being phased out (like '.an') 2. Remove non-country ccTLD (I guess only '.eu') 3. Add codes for missing countries (only Yemen, as Patrick already noticed)
Grahame Grieve (Sep 03 2019 at 20:41):
@Wayne Kubick can you add this to your discussion with ISO?
Wayne Kubick (Sep 03 2019 at 22:00):
Yes. The use of ISO 3166 country codes also came up at HTA today.
Christof Gessner (Sep 04 2019 at 07:29):
The general policy of ISO appears to be in favor of making ISO standards usable "free of charge", this is my impression when I read this policy document: https://www.iso.org/iso-standards-and-patents.html
As far as services of ISO maintenance agencies are concerned, Annex G of the directives part 1 clarifies that "Any charges for services provided by a maintenance agency shall be authorized by the council board." https://www.iso.org/sites/directives/current/consolidated/index.xhtml#_idTextAnchor408
Rob Hausam (Sep 04 2019 at 14:39):
We'll be using the alternate Web meeting at https://zoom.us/j/8488242144 for the (likely short) call today.
Julie James (Nov 11 2019 at 16:47):
Update from the German DIMDI/HL7 enquiry to ISO:
Patricia Cook from ISO Central Secretariat (responsible for 3166): "You don’t need any permission to include the ISO 3166 country codes in lists or software, this is fine" :)
Jose Costa Teixeira (Nov 11 2019 at 19:09):
Thank you Julie!
Grahame Grieve (Nov 11 2019 at 19:29):
@Julie James can we add this sentence here: http://hl7.org/fhir/iso3166.html#4.3.12.3 please
Morten Ernebjerg (Jul 01 2020 at 12:15):
Seems to not have been updated on the page Grahame links (just asked myself this question and assumed a license was indeed required after reading that page).
Alexander Zautke (Jul 01 2020 at 12:37):
A sentence was added to the IPS. See https://jira.hl7.org/browse/FHIR-25472
Alexander Zautke (Jul 01 2020 at 12:38):
However, it seems that it got lost again, I can't find it in the current build version. @Giorgio Cangioli ?
Giorgio Cangioli (Jul 01 2020 at 12:53):
see http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/ips/copyrights.html (that refers https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html)
Giorgio Cangioli (Jul 01 2020 at 12:53):
"ISO allows free-of-charge use of its country, currency and language codes from ISO 3166, ISO 4217 and ISO 639, respectively."
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
