🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct05.171911.9981@nuustak.csir.co.za> acooper@nuustak.csir.co.za (Antony Cooper) writes:
>Why is there a need for both ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
>and NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology) in the USA?
>
>I understand that ANSI is a private institution that does not actually
>develop standards, but that it verifies that standards have been developed
>properly, and that NIST is responsible for Federal standards in the USA,
>such as FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards).
>
>Is there not an overlap between the two? Are ANSI standards automatically
>accepted by NIST, and vice versa?

(I decided to post this after emailing it to Mr. Cooper, and it bounced.)

ANSI does develop standards. It is the U.S. national representative to
I.S.O. (International Standards Organization). As such it participates
in developing I.S.O. standards. It also develops standards for the
U.S.  (e.g., the standard is meant to be just for the U.S., and is not
intended to be an international standard). In some cases ANSI uses
"accredited bodies" (I think that is the correct term) to develop
standards as a "sub-contractor". As an example, the I.E.E.E. did the
work for POSIX.1 for ANSI. As an example of ANSI doing standards
itself, ANSI did the ANSI C language standard. ANSI is supposed to be
THE (capitals for emphasis) standards setting body for the US. It does
much more than computer-related standards (just as ISO does). There are
standards for paper sized, electrical connections, keyboards, bolt (as
in machine screw) sizes, cable densities, etc.

NIST (among other things) "advises" the US government (or parts of it,
I've never been quite sure) for procurement specifications. As an
example, there is a NIST document that describes specifications for
"POSIX-type" operating systems environments that should be met when
bidding on government contracts that require said specifications. This
is not exactly the same thing as specifying conformance to a particular
standard. In the POSIX example :
 (1) POSIX.1 has many, many options. The NIST spec says which options
     have to be present
 (2) NIST sometimes will not wait for a standard. [NIST made specs
     using draft versions of POSIX.1 and POSIX.2.]

To resume, (and to grossly simplify) ANSI is the standards organization
for the US. NIST writes specifications to be used/met for government
contract bidding.

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  --- Matthew Caprile    || Hey, I only speak for myself ! Even I  ---
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