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In article <15930@haddock.ima.isc.com> jimm@ima.ima.isc.com (Jim
McGrath) writes:

= In article <1990Feb9.192505.26290@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp
= (Henry Spencer) writes: 

== In practice, ISO seems to be exactly like all the other standards
== outfits: the revenue from sales of high-priced documents is
== significant and they're not prepared to give it up.  ISO does not
== have magic sources of funding that eliminate all financial worries.

In part.  Most of the workers on ISO WG's are funded by their
employers; a very few are personally funded.  On the presumption that
ISO includes office staff, and on the assurity that it distributes
expensive paper documents, those costs must be somehow covered.  My
experience is with ANSI, but I expect the same history applies to ISO.
The ANSI X3 headquarters personnel costs used to be covered by CBEMA,
a business computer consortium.  When the size of X3 led to costs more
than CBEMA was willing to cover, methods such as high copy fees for
working documents and "voluntary" contributions for committee
participation were incorporated.

For those of us on the various nets, with our long history of ftp and
uucp mail accessable archives, funded by organizations willing to
provide the disk space and telecomm lines, and managed by volunteers
who stand among the true unsung heros of the human race, it seems
incomprehensible that _paper_ copies of anything might be needed for
distributing information.  However, in truth, many (most) standards
have nothing to do with computers, and are not used by computer
sophisticated organizational entities, so paper/microfiche/other
hardcopy is a mandate.  Given that they must provide paper standards,
and must sell them to recover costs, the standards organizations have
found that making a profit on the paper copies can solve their funding
problems for permanent staff.

Once having been seduced into this method of self-funding, now free
(electronic) distribution of the standards information directly
threatens the financial integrity of the standards body.  Since the
standards groups are non-profit, and probably financially marginal on
their best fiscal years, this leads to strong rejection of electronic
distribution of copyrighted standards "for free".  Even I, who have
been denied participation in three standards efforts where I am
competent to give expert criticism by poverty vis-a-vis the cost of
paper standards draft documents, have to sympathise with the
difficulty electronic distribution poses to the standards bodies.

= This seems to be rather circular reasoning. i.e. ISO exists to
= produce expensive documents to pay for its existence.  If there is
= some need for ISO beyond that perceived by ISO itself, the market
= place will pay for it.  GM for a while saw a need for the ISO based
= MAP protocols, and invested in their definition and implementation.

The usual participants in standards activities are from four areas:
potential implementers of the standard, very large customers who will
benefit from the existance of the standard applied to a product,
government agencies whose charter covers the same area as the
standard, and academics whose discipline includes the area of the
standard.  There are no direct participants (that I have seen, of
course) whose reason for participation is that they are from among the
"common man" whose money eventually drives all markets.  The reasons
are many, but the best characterization is probably that high cost of
participation must be justified by high benefit of participation.

= It appears to be much easier for a government, or corporation to
= specify the ISO protocols when they don't have to pay for their
= development,

Actually, it is usually those who participate who are first to
benefit, and most adamant about participation.  It helps to have early
access to the draft documents, and it is usually policy of any
organization funding participation that they will recover costs by
using the standard.

= and easier to back away from an implementation that is too slow or
= cumbersome when little money is invested up front.

Oops!  Please differentiate in thinking about this subject between
standards (ideals) and implementations (reality).  The quality of an
implementation does not necessarily have (but may have) any
relationship to the quality or cost of a standard.

= What I'm trying to say here is that the people who want ISO
= implementations (end users) should pay for the standards
= developments, not the potential implementers.

The "market place" does not provide an easy method to recover these
costs from the end beneficiaries of standards, in major parts because
the beneficiaries of a standard are very hard to identify, and because
the benefits of a standard are extremely hard to quantify, and not
often self-evident to the end user.  A particularly clear example is
screw thread standards.  Unless I buy a product made in another
country with different standards, I may never in a lifetime become
aware that a screw thread standard exists or is needed.  Thus I would
probably resist a surcharge on each screw I buy to pay for standards
body activity, and I would surely challenge your evaluation of the
amount I should pay.  Still, each new screw manufacturer needs to be
able to buy the standards document, and so the documents' maintenance
needs funding.

= If funding cannot be found for this, it would imply to me that the
= ISO standards effort has no value.

Well, the creations of standards _are_ funded, and the level of
participation implies that they are funded with some enthusiasm.  What
are not funded are free copies of the resulting standards information.
It is a bit of a shame in this era of comp.sources.* and data piracy
that the free lunch has come to seem an entitlement to the computer
community.

I do believe that the current pricing of standards _draft_ documents
actively precludes or lessens expert commentary, probably to the
detriment of the standards creation process.  But it is exactly those
who chose to pay the existing (high) prices for paper standards who
are the true "market place" for the standard, and this is probably as
appropriate a way to recover standards maintenance costs as any other.
I think this is an improvement over expecting the standards bodies to
exist on corporate and government "charity", money which eventually is
recovered by product prices and taxes from you and I, anyway.

--
Again, my opinions, not the account furnishers'.

xanthian@well.sf.ca.us (Kent Paul Dolan)
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