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Speaking as someone who is on an ISO committee, this topic of discussion comes up every couple years. The bottom line is that there are and will always be cost

Speaking as someone who is on an ISO committee, this topic of discussion comes up every couple years. The bottom line is that there are and will always be costs associated with a running an organization, regardless of whether they are for or non profit. There are overhead costs associated with running a website, conferences, technical review, or collaboration tooling for example. While some revenue comes from participants and membership fees, not everything gets covered. The organization does a lot for the public good and it's unacceptable to criticize these passionate engineers that have dedicated their careers to ensuring proper standards globally.

strogonoff 6y ago
Surely making a standards organization entirely dependent on subsidies by forbidding it from selling literally the results of its work in a free economy isn’t going to backfire in any way…
- An_ISO_Dude 6y ago
  We have to make money somehow. I don't understand how people don't understand why this is the case. If you increase the cost of other things then organizations and people won't want to be part of the committees. A lot of the revenue comes from organizations purchasing the work.
  - jonsneyers 6y ago
    ISO should be a division of the UN or something like that and get a steady budget to pay its staff. Not a regular private company that "has to make money somehow". At the very least, ISO could make the cost to get a copy of a standard not some arbitrary 3-digit number of Swiss Francs, but let the committees themselves have a say in this. In my opinion, for example, it would make perfect sense to make royalty-free specs (i.e. standards that only have Type-1 declarations) available online for free, while charging 4- or 5-digit numbers for patent encumbered specs (standards with Type-2 declarations) for which those who need access to those will have to pay 7- or 8-digit numbers in royalties anyway, so it's still an insignificant extra obstacle for them. The goal of ISO should be to promote international standardization. Its current business model is instead creating financial obstacles to adopt international standards, as well as creating financial incentives to base implementations on outdated drafts and old versions, which defeats the purpose of having processes to amend, correct and extend standards. Other standardization organizations like IETF, W3C, ITU are capable of "making money somehow" without having to put their standards behind a paywall. Standards are a lot like laws, except you in theory voluntarily comply with them (though not always — there are plenty of cases where compliance to ISO standards is obligatory in one way or another). It would be insane if politicians would put the laws they write behind a paywall, for sale to lawyers at 118 Swiss Francs per article, with the argument that "judges need to make money somehow". If you expect people to respect the law, the least you can do is to let them actually see the law, for free. Why would it be any different for international standards?
    - Chris2048 6y ago
      > ISO should be a division of the UN Heeellll no! An international co-op, fine, but please not part of political committees such as the UN!
      - dada78641 6y ago
        There always have been and will always be international politics at play in industry standards organizations, regardless of whether you make it part of the UN or not.
        Chris2048 6y ago
        And will there be more, or less, as part of the UN?
        jonsneyers 6y ago
        Probably roughly the same.
      - strogonoff 6y ago
        Yep. This is part of the reason I think a world where ISO is more or less self-sustaining, rather than subsidized by/part of some other entity that would be really tempted to influence it, is probably a better world. In any case, ISO WGs tend to publish final drafts openly. Purchasing the actual standard document is not something required if you are just experimenting or playing around (and if you’re not, you probably can spare some change to support the organization).
ddevault 6y ago
Tell that to the IETF, who publishes thousands of standards for free, standards that made your comment on this forum possible. Open standards. Open research. Open code. This is how we progress as a society. Rent seeking organizations like ISO can rot in the dirt for all I care.
- An_ISO_Dude 6y ago
  Sorry, but you're only kidding yourself if you think you can even compare an RFC with an ISO publication. There's rigor, formality, lawyers, technical writers, and many others involved. RFC is exactly what it sounds like and what was originally intended for: "Request For Comments". There's no conference or central body (at least to the degree that there is for ISO) and it's mostly done in an ad-hoc manner. Nothing against IETF or RFCs, but you're really comparing apples and oranges. I've been coauthor on two RFCs and it is nothing like an ISO committee.
- alacombe 6y ago
  Do you mean the same IETF who standardize a technology covered by Cisco patents ? These guys are a joke... Heck, there is even a song about it... https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35 https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35
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lonjil 6y ago
I know a whole bunch of people who are on an ISO committee, and not a single one of them is happy that their hard work will be locked behind a paywall.
- An_ISO_Dude 6y ago
  Most (if not all) people on the committees don't like the paywall. The accountants have to explain every couple years why its necessary. Then people seem to forget and we have to do it all over again. It's cyclical.
  - lonjil 6y ago
    But other standards organisations do just fine providing free standards, including fairly large and complex standards, so it doesn't seem particularly necessary at all. Hell, some ISO standards are freely available, presumably because standards that don't get implemented due to lack of access are kind of useless.
    - passivate 6y ago
      What would be a comparable organization to the ISO?
      - jonsneyers 6y ago
        The ITU, for example.
  - alacombe 6y ago
    Firing the accountants and all the admin staff would be a good start to save money. No need to save these jobs...
Chris2048 6y ago
> it's unacceptable to criticize these passionate engineers Sorry AN_ISO_Dude, but whatever merit someone/group has doesn't exempt them from valid criticism. Show us the receipts, and how these standards couldn't exist without paywalls and I (we) would be a lot more sympathetic - the argument here is purely qualitative.

strogonoff 6y ago

Surely making a standards organization entirely dependent on subsidies by forbidding it from selling literally the results of its work in a free economy isn’t going to backfire in any way…

An_ISO_Dude 6y ago
We have to make money somehow. I don't understand how people don't understand why this is the case. If you increase the cost of other things then organizations and people won't want to be part of the committees. A lot of the revenue comes from organizations purchasing the work.
- jonsneyers 6y ago
  ISO should be a division of the UN or something like that and get a steady budget to pay its staff. Not a regular private company that "has to make money somehow". At the very least, ISO could make the cost to get a copy of a standard not some arbitrary 3-digit number of Swiss Francs, but let the committees themselves have a say in this. In my opinion, for example, it would make perfect sense to make royalty-free specs (i.e. standards that only have Type-1 declarations) available online for free, while charging 4- or 5-digit numbers for patent encumbered specs (standards with Type-2 declarations) for which those who need access to those will have to pay 7- or 8-digit numbers in royalties anyway, so it's still an insignificant extra obstacle for them. The goal of ISO should be to promote international standardization. Its current business model is instead creating financial obstacles to adopt international standards, as well as creating financial incentives to base implementations on outdated drafts and old versions, which defeats the purpose of having processes to amend, correct and extend standards. Other standardization organizations like IETF, W3C, ITU are capable of "making money somehow" without having to put their standards behind a paywall. Standards are a lot like laws, except you in theory voluntarily comply with them (though not always — there are plenty of cases where compliance to ISO standards is obligatory in one way or another). It would be insane if politicians would put the laws they write behind a paywall, for sale to lawyers at 118 Swiss Francs per article, with the argument that "judges need to make money somehow". If you expect people to respect the law, the least you can do is to let them actually see the law, for free. Why would it be any different for international standards?
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    > ISO should be a division of the UN Heeellll no! An international co-op, fine, but please not part of political committees such as the UN!
    - dada78641 6y ago
      There always have been and will always be international politics at play in industry standards organizations, regardless of whether you make it part of the UN or not.
      - Chris2048 6y ago
        And will there be more, or less, as part of the UN?
        jonsneyers 6y ago
        Probably roughly the same.
    - strogonoff 6y ago
      Yep. This is part of the reason I think a world where ISO is more or less self-sustaining, rather than subsidized by/part of some other entity that would be really tempted to influence it, is probably a better world. In any case, ISO WGs tend to publish final drafts openly. Purchasing the actual standard document is not something required if you are just experimenting or playing around (and if you’re not, you probably can spare some change to support the organization).

ddevault 6y ago

Tell that to the IETF, who publishes thousands of standards for free, standards that made your comment on this forum possible. Open standards. Open research. Open code. This is how we progress as a society. Rent seeking organizations like ISO can rot in the dirt for all I care.

An_ISO_Dude 6y ago
Sorry, but you're only kidding yourself if you think you can even compare an RFC with an ISO publication. There's rigor, formality, lawyers, technical writers, and many others involved. RFC is exactly what it sounds like and what was originally intended for: "Request For Comments". There's no conference or central body (at least to the degree that there is for ISO) and it's mostly done in an ad-hoc manner. Nothing against IETF or RFCs, but you're really comparing apples and oranges. I've been coauthor on two RFCs and it is nothing like an ISO committee.
alacombe 6y ago
Do you mean the same IETF who standardize a technology covered by Cisco patents ? These guys are a joke... Heck, there is even a song about it... https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35 https://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35

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lonjil 6y ago

I know a whole bunch of people who are on an ISO committee, and not a single one of them is happy that their hard work will be locked behind a paywall.

An_ISO_Dude 6y ago
Most (if not all) people on the committees don't like the paywall. The accountants have to explain every couple years why its necessary. Then people seem to forget and we have to do it all over again. It's cyclical.
- lonjil 6y ago
  But other standards organisations do just fine providing free standards, including fairly large and complex standards, so it doesn't seem particularly necessary at all. Hell, some ISO standards are freely available, presumably because standards that don't get implemented due to lack of access are kind of useless.
  - passivate 6y ago
    What would be a comparable organization to the ISO?
    - jonsneyers 6y ago
      The ITU, for example.
- alacombe 6y ago
  Firing the accountants and all the admin staff would be a good start to save money. No need to save these jobs...

Chris2048 6y ago

> it's unacceptable to criticize these passionate engineers Sorry AN_ISO_Dude, but whatever merit someone/group has doesn't exempt them from valid criticism. Show us the receipts, and how these standards couldn't exist without paywalls and I (we) would be a lot more sympathetic - the argument here is purely qualitative.