From: Erik Naggum <enag@ifi.uio.no>
Organization: Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Date: 29 Sep 1992 00:24:19 +0100
Subject: Re: ISO specs.

Peter Desnoyers <peterd@pjd.dev.cdx.mot.com> writes:
|
|   I'm far from a hard-core capitalist, but I have to believe that there
|   are consequences to the fact that OSI, CCITT, and ANSI get paid when
|   someone buys copies of their standards, but not when they implement
|   them, sell implementations, or use them.

Good points.  I was most dismayed when I found out that ECMA sends you
their standards for free, including ECMA 101, which I had just bought
for a whole truckload of money from ISO as ISO 8613.  Fume.  ECMA is
funded by its members, just like the consortia you mention.  ISO's
member bodies aren't in a position to fund anything, and it's legally
very tricky for an organization who depends on volunteer participation
from industry members to patent or otherwise "own" the technology that
has been developed.  At least the consortia members get back something
for their investments, and don't have to pay for their own technology.
ISO can't provide such business incentives.  (Unfortunately, maybe.)

|   ISO is in the business of defining voluntary, non-proprietary
|   standards. In this activity it is in competition with a lot of other
|   organizations, including private companies, industry consortia, and
|   individual national standards bodies. Its success can be measured by
|   how widely its standards are adopted by users and implementers.

Hmmm.  ISO used to publish standards ex post facto.  It was with the
"avant garde" of CCITT recommendations and the break-neck speed of the
information technology development that it began to "invent" things.
ISO standards have a truly enormous user base, generally speaking.  We
see this problem differently because we're on the (b)leading edge of the
development, where very little is actually standardized, and what is, is
often accused of being so prematurely (e.g. X.400(1984)).

I don't think the problem is ISO, I think it's the speed with which we
see development in our field, as well as the number of unusual people
(to ISO) who are interested in such standards.

Hmmm, thought for the day: I think the fact that ISO is "inventing" in
our field may be a cause of its attractiveness, and the source of our
problems with their policies.  If they were not inventing, all the
activity would take place elsewhere, and be standardized by ISO when it
was mature.  Unfortunately, "mature" is a euphemism for "obsolete" with
us information technology guys.

|   I don't want to see the telecom and computer industries abandon the
|   public standardization process in preference for proprietary standards
|   developed behind closed doors. However, if proprietary standards
|   become more widespread, well-supported, and robust than open
|   standards, then customers are going to want them and I am going to
|   be providing them.

Precisely the reason why IBM code page 37 is still with us.  This is a
problem that can't be solved.

|   If ISO acts as a publisher, restricting standards distribution to the
|   profitable end of the demand curve, then they aren't helping their
|   position as a standards organization. Unfortunately, as Erik notes,
|   if they abandon this position as a publisher, currently they will go
|   broke.

You imply that they will, either way.  If we can convince ISO of that,
we may have a chance to affect their policies.  Unfortunately, this is
only valid for the information technology branch, at least in the
immediate to near future.

Best regards,
</Erik>
--
Erik Naggum             |  ISO  8879 SGML     |      +47 295 0313
                        |  ISO 10744 HyTime   |
<erik@naggum.no>        |  ISO 10646 UCS      |      Memento, terrigena.
<enag@ifi.uio.no>       |  ISO  9899 C        |      Memento, vita brevis.
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
From: proyse@peeras.demon.co.uk (Phil Royse)