The article is misleading. The ABA has no power to "DRM the law." It's a purely private organization like the IEEE or the ACM. What the ABA did is pass a resolution urging Congress to require that private publications incorporated by reference into federal regulations be made publicly-available: https://www.americanbar.org/news/reporter_resources/annual-m...
I.e., if a regulation incorporates the POSIX standard--which you ordinarily have to pay for--by reference, the ABA resolution calls for a copy of the standard to be made publicly available. That is often not the case today.
What the ABA stopped short of doing is calling for a freely-copyable version of those private codes. I can't access the final resolution for some reason, but the draft says "the required public access must include at least online, read-only access to the incorporated portion of the standard . . . but it need not include access to the incorporated material in hard-copy printed form."
I strongly support the idea that anything incorporated by reference into the law should be public domain. But the article is a very misleading take on what the ABA did and even what the ABA has the power to do.
I.e., if a regulation incorporates the POSIX standard--which you ordinarily have to pay for--by reference, the ABA resolution calls for a copy of the standard to be made publicly available. That is often not the case today.
What the ABA stopped short of doing is calling for a freely-copyable version of those private codes. I can't access the final resolution for some reason, but the draft says "the required public access must include at least online, read-only access to the incorporated portion of the standard . . . but it need not include access to the incorporated material in hard-copy printed form."
I strongly support the idea that anything incorporated by reference into the law should be public domain. But the article is a very misleading take on what the ABA did and even what the ABA has the power to do.