🚀 go-pugleaf

J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) writes:


>I'm interested in why the whole area of standards is so gothic
>anyhow...

Gothic is a nice description of it ...

[...]

>contrast with the far more distributed approach of de facto standards
>(e.g. internet, dare i say...)

Wellll, then almost everybody could implement/comment on it, that would
be open --- or even worse, people could point out shortcomings/bugs/
fuzziness, we don't want that, right? Also, people would notice that not even
members of the same committee are not sure what they're talking about/writing
about (one of the best example for obfuscated standard writing is ISO 8348-2 on
NSAP address, shudder)

Maybe we should propose an International Standard's Obfuscated Standard 
Writing Contest (ISOSWC), but then we'd be swamped with far too many 
eligible contestants, right? 8=)/8=(

[...]

>in fact, i believe that the "internatinal standards" in general and "open
>systems" in particular have almost exact opposite effects from the
>original supposed intentions - 

>they result in deliberate obfuscation by any companies with good technical
>input in an area, as who wants to subvert their own sales

Or by companies with *bad* technical input who want to protect their already
established equipment and not spent money on new stuff (X.25 for example 
could need quite some improvements, X.25/LLC2 likewise 8=(

[...]

>as for document availability, i don't object to copyright and so forth 
>to protect costs, but there is legal recourse rather than simple
>witholding of electronic versions

Hmm, shouldn't standards designed to provide OPEN SYSTEMS be available to 
everyone who want's to have a look (I'd agree to handling & printing charge,
but currently getting ISO docs is almost as expensive as getting drugs - or so
they say, I'm not on drugs, rather I'm on ISO docs 8=)

[...]

>i spose its too much to ask for - iso is based on levelling
>down/lowest common denominator almost by defn.

yes, sigh ...


	Dirk
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