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rdk table1708_rdk 29/08/2015 09:07 Page 2 value is,” responds Gounard. “But one of the disappointing things, I think,” laments Hannent, “has been the lack of support from some RDK SoC vendors for the open standards part of RDK in terms of the lower layer abstraction.” “Certainly there is a point that some people may not contribute enough back to RDK,” says Alliez. “It is important to look at shared value, that’s what an open innovation programme is about. No one develops a component to give it away for free so there has to be a shared value,” says Gounard, “if you contribute a component the payback will be the maintenance and the lifecycle of the component because it will be complemented and improved by the community.” “That leads to what RDK is good at; reuseability, the multiplication factor and many challenges for operators are in that bracket. There are a number of vendors that provide optimised layers within RDK as well and maintain a differentiation for them; RDK doesn’t restrict you in terms of the implementation method,” advises Schutte. “But it is not without its challenges. We work with some technology vendors as a kind of conduit because they have legal advice – right or wrong – that the RDK licence would expose them to IPR risks that could undermine their business model,” says Hannent. “I can understand that if I were a small company with a great innovation I wouldn’t contribute it to RDK,” says Alliez. “Clearly companies like Cisco or Alticast have the manpower or capabilities to maintain what we contribute, but even within Cisco we don’t contribute everything…we are developing new services based on RDK but whether we contribute them or not is often a discussion with the provider we have developed them for.” “This has to be client-led,” agrees Schutte. “This is one of the big differentiators between an approach like Android and RDK, both are cross industry development platforms one is driven b HۙHX