ICE std-ization?

in Comments
I would like ZeroC to consider std-izing ICE at some point. I think ICE is a great improvement on CORBA but without std-ization it could be perceived as a high risk strategic technology choice. I realise that the risk is mitigated by the fact that it is open source but even so....
Std-ization would, of course, open up the field for competing proprietary implementations. I realise that ZeroC might not be keen on that. But CORBA vendors seem to be surviving by implementing an open std. Iona is the leader but that is probably mainly due to theirs being the first implementation to hit the streets. Similarly, if ICE was std-ized then the ZeroC implementation would be dominant by being there first, at least that's my theory FWIW.
Std-ization would, of course, open up the field for competing proprietary implementations. I realise that ZeroC might not be keen on that. But CORBA vendors seem to be surviving by implementing an open std. Iona is the leader but that is probably mainly due to theirs being the first implementation to hit the streets. Similarly, if ICE was std-ized then the ZeroC implementation would be dominant by being there first, at least that's my theory FWIW.
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Let me point out again that we don't hold any patents in Ice, so anyone can take our Ice documentation and write a competing implementation. What they cannot do, of course, is to use the source code of our Ice implementation, i.e., it would have to be a clean-room implementation. (Except if this implementation would also be released under the GNU license.)
If standardization is ever to happen for Ice, we first need implementations from a source other than ZeroC, and then we can think about standardizing things.
Cheers,
Michi.