🚀 go-pugleaf

Ralph Mackiewicz <ics.ralph@Control.Com> writes:
|
|   I agree that it is a shame that ISO documents are not free and that the
|   issue of tampering is cop-out excuse.

Did I say that in the article I said I would regret posting?  The issue
is _fear_ of tampering.  That's a concern with anybody who publishes
anything and lets other people redistribute it freely.  Whether it's
a real issue or not cannot be established, it's a null hypothesis in the
face of complete lack of data points, and whether you _think_ it isn't
an issue is completely irrelevant -- it isn't you who decide ISO policy.

The much more real issue is ISO's desire for a copyright, and they can
have any goddamn reason they wish for wanting to maintain copyright on
the standards.  They're theirs, and they make decisions about them.
It's that simple.  Whether you reject their reasons or not doesn't have
anything to do with it.  They still have the copyright, and they still
use whatever legal resources they can to fight infringers.  This works,
and ISO has gotten their policy decisions reinforced thereby.

In other words, you need more powerful argumentation for ISO to change
their policies than "I want it, and don't want to buy it" and "it's a
shame they aren't free".  People who own copyright in something shy away
from you if you start using such arguments when requesting copies of
their stuff.  Instead, fund ISO by other means, convince them that "ISO
standard" won't have its value and prestige depleted by numerous copies
of dubious integrity, and you may get what you want.

|   All standards organizations charge a fee for distribution of standards

ECMA sends you their standards for free.  Members of ECMA pay for this
through their annual fees.

|   I believe that OSI products do not sell well because there are not
|   many people ACTIVELY selling well.  If you contact most PLC mfgs and
|   ask for an MMS/OSI connection you will be lucky if they know what
|   you are talking about.  More likely they will try to convince you
|   that the proprietary solution is better, cheaper, etc.  The same is
|   true for many computer manufacturers.  The only users that receive
|   an active sales pitch for OSI technology are those that insist on
|   it.

I agree with this.

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.