I think you're confusing "FRAND" standards and "open standards". You've listed examples of FRAND standards - they're open to use, provided you pay all the associated costs. RFCs, or many (but not all!) standards from the IEEE, are examples of truly open standards: they are both openly published for you to create your own implementation, and you do not need to pay for the use of the standard.

I don't think its a fair definition. I am perfectly fine with calling wireless standards open standards.

They place no undue burden on the implementers and the licensing rates are reasonable. Do you agree?

I am much more in line with the IETF's definition.

10.3.1. All Contributions

By submission of a contribution, each person actually submitting the
contribution is deemed to agree to the following terms and conditions
on his own behalf, on behalf of the organization (if any) he
represents and on behalf of the owners of any propriety rights in the
contribution.. Where a submission identifies contributors in
addition to the contributor(s) who provide the actual submission, the
actual submitter(s) represent that each other named contributor was
made aware of and agreed to accept the same terms and conditions on
his own behalf, on behalf of any organization he may represent and
any known owner of any proprietary rights in the contribution.

l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to
copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may
be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he
represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in
the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive,
royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the
IETF under any copyrights in the contribution. This license
includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the
contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are
based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the
license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the
license of the original contribution.

I'm unsure, but it is part of my issue with this hatchet they're taking to EAS. Without a suitable solution in place, it is irresponsible to reduce consumer functionality. I wish Google was a little more pragmatic.

I'm unsure, but it is part of my issue with this hatchet they're taking to EAS. Without a suitable solution in place, it is irresponsible to reduce consumer functionality.

Now please tell me how is the consumer impacted negatively here? (First look up the definition of consumer, vs customer)

Did the deprecation of EAS on free Google services make it impossible to use Outlook.com or other services that provide the same functionality?

Xbox supports DirectX and there are a lot of big name games written using DirectX. Yes, I understand some of these (more so than maybe on the PC) are also running on OpenGL, but it is often an afterthought. In my experience, I've seen a lot more low quality ports to the PS3 rather than the other way around.

I have not taken a hard enough look at iOS, Android, and other platforms that use OpenGL to know if there is enough there to tip the scales.

3G, LTE and WiFI are developer in an open way. They are not called open because you can get documentation.

Just like you can't call Android development an open process, you can't call EAS protocol an open standard.

Microsoft would need to let other people make contributions/comments in the development process of EAS.

Really, the only thing that would relate to patents in this case is if Microsoft had them undisclosed. Not all standards require a FRAND commitment(SD Association's exFAT is an example), but development has to be open to external contribution. That is what open stands for in open standards.

Well you can't live without your favourite stalker, can't you?

It's wrong morally, but the consumer has had no impact.

Had anybody problem, synchronizing Google contacts through EAS that only first 50 get pulled?
I'm getting grey hair because of that with my N9. Ironically E is the only way contacts can be got from gmail on this Linux based device.

I put the word "standard" in italics here, in relation to EAS, because a true standard is mean to enable inter-operability of different products. See here for a definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_standard
"A software standard is a standard, protocol, or other common format of a document, file, or data transfer accepted and used by one or more software developers while working on one or more than one computer programs. Software standards enable interoperability between different programs created by different developers."

EAS constrains consumers to MS products only. If anything, it is an anti-standard.

This is a self-evident truth. How could you have possibly got it so backwards?

I thought MeeGo Harmattan supported CalDAV out of the box! Am I understanding anything wrong?