17 ms·

ISO should make all standards Publicly Available

565 points by yegle 5y ago

WaitWaitWha 5y ago
Here is a piece of ISO insanity - how to secure your *home* network - 499USD. https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/ISO/ISOIEC3010027001HomeNetwork https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/ISO/ISOIEC3010027001Home...
- rdpintqogeogsaa 5y ago
  Looking at the (publicly available) introduction of ISO/IEC 30100-1[0], ISO/IEC 30100 is about how to ensure secure interoperability of devices and software intended for home networks, not for individuals managing their own network. [0] https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:30100:-1:ed-1:v1:en https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:30100:-1:ed-1:v1...
parasense 5y ago
Does anybody remember back in the early 2000's when ISO attempted a passive-aggressive coup on the TIA/ANSI standard for Category Ethernet cabling? For Years the TIA ( Telecommunications Industry Association) was evolving "Category Cable" standards, then one day the ISO declared a new category cable with a sequential number bump of the previous TIA standard, which was cat-6. ISO called their so-called new standard Cat-7. I write so-called because there was already preliminary draft work on the same technology by members of the incumbent standards body (TIA). Pretty much ISO modified the TIA's existing draft with a certain member company's ideological opinion on new cable connectors, and rushed it out. I won't say which ISO member company was pushing hard for their concept of Cat-7, but it was a large European technology company in-and-around Germany, and they had an idea to introduce new cable connectors for which they owned the patent. The new connectors improved interference, and thus improved bandwidth, etc... but were not the backwards compatible traditional RJ-45 style connector the Americans in the TIA were keen to preserve. This was the most down-played and suppressed drama of all time. Both parties played it very diplomatically, and made absolutely zero public fuss about the issue of ISO attempting to assert itself into another standards body's domain. You may have noticed one or two belligerent nerds on IRC chatting pedantically about this topic every few years. Mostly one clueful nerd saying there is no such thing as Category-7 cable, as if to say that if the TIA doesn't make the standard for cable, it doesn't exist, etc... while another would say that any standards body can make a standard, etc... implying that they didn't care who makes the standard. Regardless, it was well outside the zeitgeist of Networking professionals in the industry, meaning your average network administrators. That is why the ISO thought they could get away with the scandal. Ultimately the issue was resolved when the TIA established Cat-6a, and then Cat-8, thereby re-establishing their line in the row of category cables. Cat-7 was simultaneously ignored by most-all the members of the TIA member companies, and not certified by many vendors for interoperability. That said, Cat-7 was interoperable using RJ-45 style connectors. It was a sort of industry wide scarlet-letter, the TIA was going to make Cat-7 irrelevant by having the previous standard adopt sub-categories, E.G. cat-6a, cat-6b, etc... And of course reasserting itself sequentially in the versioning scheme they themselves created. Finally, the ISO was going to do the same thing to networking cables, lock the standard away behind closed doors, but they had misappropriated the technology from an open standard. It's probably unethical, or at least shady. To them it was a new potential revenue stream, and pursing the interests of one of their committee member. All around it stank of collusion, conspiracy, and cronyism.
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
I had to just buy a new version of a standard/paper… $250, out of pocket, and it was mostly typos and clarifications that make the :2020 version better than the :2016 version. I had to pay to find out nothing really changed. Yes. They should be free. No. They never will be.
kuroguro 5y ago
I don't get how a standard behind a paywall is even considered a standard. Imagine you had to pay to find out what a meter is.
- Arnt 5y ago
  https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0024QL8MC https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0024QL8MC ?
  - thrdbndndn 5y ago
    Rekt
  - croon 5y ago
    > The metre is currently defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second. There, that's free. I understand yours is likely just a joke, but you're paying for the tool, not the definition.
    - Arnt 5y ago
      It was… a serious joke. GP: "Imagine you had to pay to find out what a meter is." I posted a link to a device that'll tell you whether something is a meter, or more, or less. Now, that wasn't what GP had in mind, but it matches the words. So what did GP have in mind? Perhaps something more like a definition? Wikipedia supplies that (and wants you to pay, there's a promiment banner at the top of the page). Britannica supplies a definition (and requires you to pay). Your school books supplied a definition (and the school paid for that, and for the teacher who made you read it, and more). ISO supplies that, and requires you to pay, like all the others. I like free stuff as much as the next guy, but having to pay isn't "imagine that", it's the normal case. In the case of ISO the readers pay around half the cost and the writers pay the other half. You can argue that the the costs should be split differently, but please not by saying "imagine that".
      - croon 5y ago
        In all your examples you are paying someone to print something. Wikipedia asks you to pay for hosting, staff and further development (if you want to). But no one has copyright on the definition of a metre. You are free to type it on a paper and give it to as many people as you'd like. That's what free means. Can I copy ISO standards freely?
Bancakes 5y ago
Taxation without representation. Anyone who pays for standards should be able to vote alongside committees and perpetuate the development.
- rjsw 5y ago
  You have representation, your National Standards Body is your representative and votes on your behalf.
causi 5y ago
I would've expected sci-hub to have a complete collection of ISO standards.
- grive 5y ago
  When you buy an ISO standard, it is marked by the buyer ID. To make it publicly available, you need to strip it. That means the file must be modified, and the tampered copy must be stored somewhere. Sci-hub has a different model: it is decentralized because it lends credentials to download protected articles. It does not store them. It cannot remain decentralized if it stored or cached the content. I looked into it to write a QR-code tool. Getting the standard was a bullshit process and I wasn't going to pay that much for a side-project. I did not write the tool as a result, even though I'm not happy with the one existing on linux (though, thanks a lot to its author, who did so using the standard at personal cost for public benefit). The solution I found was to buy it properly, but go through eastern-Europe countries, to make it cheaper. Still bullshit to have to buy a standard for common tooling necessary to interact with everyday life.
  - Kliment 5y ago
    Sci-hub does in fact cache and store everything. They have articles available that are no longer available from the original source.
    - grive 5y ago
      Indeed! I was working with false assumptions, thanks for correcting them.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > I looked into it to write a QR-code tool. > Getting the standard was a bullshit process and I wasn't going to pay that much for a side-project. I was once in a similar situation. Needed the document in order to understand QR codes so I could contribute to the zbar project. Was forced to use some outdated draft I found online. I simply don't understand the point of this gatekeeping. IETF RFCs are how things should be done.
goblin89 5y ago
The $XXX a business would spend on standards is insignificant compared to $XXXXX+ it has to give consultants in return for understanding how to actually comply with those impenetrable walls of text enough to pass an audit.
- Kichererbsen 5y ago
  That's exactly the point: Any business that can afford to spend on standards doesn't want to change any of this, because it helps keep out disruptors.
  - goblin89 5y ago
    My point was that (1) standards aren’t well-written if reading them is not enough to understand how to implement them in your business, (2) this benefits consultants (some of whom are involved with ISO, I’m not sure if possible conflicts of interest are taken care of), and (3) the proposal of this public letter does nothing to address the status quo.
- number6 5y ago
  As a consultant who is getting $XXXX+ for implementing the $XXX standards: most institutions could do without my consulting, but they don't because it is not the expertise they lack but the time and manpower, plus I implement this standards for a living and thus have a higher proficiency which reduces the project time by a factor of 2 + I can get some assistance on the job. But you can easily pass an audit if you actually READ the standards...
  - wheelinsupial 5y ago
    > But you can easily pass an audit if you actually READ the standards... I worked in automotive manufacturing at one point. We had to follow an automotive specific extension (ISO/TS 16949 at the time) to the ISO 9001 standard in addition to a set of AIAG Automotive Core Tools (a set of 5 books). Our auditor was being audited by one of the people who was on the extension work group and the Core Tools work group. We definitely read the standards and were found to have 13 major non-conformances. We were told there are courses the working group offers to "teach the proper way to read the documents." Maybe it's different in other industries, but my experience is you have to buy the documents, buy the courses to learn to read the documents, buy the courses to learn how to do internal audits, and then maybe you'll have the knowledge to complete the certification. But as you say, it will be quicker to use a consultant, so you add on consulting fees after all of those other expenses. Then you pay annually to be audited so you can maintain the license. It's the cost of doing business and definitely had a huge ROI where I worked.
BayesianDice 5y ago
I did recently discover that the Estonian standards agency makes ISO standards available, not for free, but significantly more cheaply than other sources I found when trying to locate standards (although I didn't end up using it so don't know any more than is on the public Web site): https://www.evs.ee/en/ https://www.evs.ee/en/
- danbruc 5y ago
  At least for some - I randomly picked ISO 8601-1:2019 - there is even an option to buy 24 hours of access. In this example a PDF from ISO [1] is €150, from EVS [2] €19 and 24 hours access is only €2.40. [1] https://www.iso.org/standard/70907.html https://www.iso.org/standard/70907.html [2] https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-iso-8601-1-2019 https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-iso-8601-1-2019
  - atsaloli 5y ago
    As an IT Operations practitioner I want to better understand SQL, so I wanted to look at the SQL standard. What used to be one document is now over a dozen -- it seems that part 2 (SQL/Foundation) deals with the SQL language basics, which is what I need right now. It's about USD 250 via the Estonian web site (https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-iec-9075-2-2016 https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-iec-9075-2-2016) It's about USD 215 from ISO directly: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9075:-2:ed-5:v1:en https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9075:-2:ed-5:v1:... I am a member of the ACM and I reached out to them but it's not in their digital library. I am looking for a legal yet economical way to obtain the standard. I am willing to pay $20 but not $200.
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      I'm not sure if this is right, but the Dutch standards body seems to have this document available [0] for free with part of it available for evaluation [1] and it seems like it's the real deal. Most other parts of the standard a shit ton of money (>€200 per part, with over 12 paid parts), but some others [2] are free as well. There are also outdated versions of the document available for free or cheap if those suit your needs, but I'm sure you can find cheaper alternatives for that as well. I don't know if there are any requirements for access (like an address in the Netherlands, or Dutch citizenship) but it seems like you can just grab the standard from here completely legally. [0]: https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-2-2016-c1-2019-en-263083 https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-2-2016-c1-2019-en-263... [1]: https://www.nen.nl/en/norm/pdf/preview/document/263083/ https://www.nen.nl/en/norm/pdf/preview/document/263083/ [2]: https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-9-2016-c1-2019-en-263078 https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-9-2016-c1-2019-en-263... https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-4-2016-c1-2019-en-263077 https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-4-2016-c1-2019-en-263...
parksy 5y ago
What bugs me is so much of our (Australia's) government's policies over time have increasingly deferred to some ISO standard or another. These days most agencies / departments are stipulating some form of ISO27k compliance from vendors, a standard that can only be purchased from ISO. Given we pay our taxes to the government, and I would have thought defining policy standards was one of the services we pay tax to have (what better thing for governments to do than what they're naturally geared towards - bureaucracy?), at the very least they would be able to directly and in detail outline the standards they expect and not simply handball the entire definition and auditing off to an international organisation and myriad consultancies with the stroke of a single bullet point requirement in the RFx. The quagmire of ISO consultancies are often charging exorbitant rates to deliver essentially a set of Excel templates, when the hard work of adopting a standard really is all in-house and any company with a copy of the standards and the templates can pretty much get it all done internally then get certified. And ultimately when it comes down to it, the standard doesn't really do much to improve quality outcomes, especially for an organisation that doesn't give a fig. A well intentioned company that's on the ball will already be following best practices, a shady company that plays cowboy will do the bare minimum to get the badge. Anyway, just an axe I tend to grind. Standards definitely are needed and have their place but holy hell is it a mess ATM. There needs to be an independent open source standards body, ISO is a farce IMHO - the standards as they are written are actually decent but their business model and hands-off approach to auditing and verifying standard adherence is a big issue across multiple sectors I think.
- webmaven 5y ago
  > a shady company that plays cowboy will do the bare minimum to get the badge. Isn't that part of the point of having a standard? That the bare minimum done by shady companies is actually enough to prevent adverse outcomes?
- roenxi 5y ago
  Dim memory suggests that Standards Australia [0] is required by numerous pieces of legislation. SA is not only privately owned, but I believe bought out by Chinese interests. Not that I mind the Chinese part, but it just adds a delicious surrealness to the situation. I suppose it is better that they control the standards rather than the clowns in government who can't even manage standards. [0] https://www.standards.org.au/ https://www.standards.org.au/
foxfluff 5y ago
IMO a "standard" that isn't publicly available free of charge (like the laws) should have no legal standing (i.e. national bodies and laws should never defer to such standards or demand compliance). Otherwise it's just an opaque law that only the rich get to read. Now if companies want to make gentleman's agreements to follow each others' paywalled standards.. by all means. But they don't get to complain if others violate these standards left and right.
- kbsspl 5y ago
  agreed!
ksec 5y ago
It is not that I am against Open Standard or even Open Source. But someone has to somehow put food on the table. Without a sustainable source of income or a business model it is a lot of wishful thinking. We dont have a policy problem. We have a business problem. Or a Go to market problem ( so to speak ). And this document doesn't seems to outline any solution.
- teddyh 5y ago
  The purpose of a standard is to aid the betterment of all users of it. The development of a standard should be supported by the funds which would be saved by the existence of a standard. Note that those who benefit from the existence of a standard is not only the participating companies, but also often the public at large, over a long period of time. This is why the government should contribute to the funds necessary to develop those standards. If there are standards which would not save enough money for either the companies involved or the public at large, those standards have no business being developed.
  - ksec 5y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree. But the moment we get to government, we ran into politics. And this isn't local government either but International level. And navigating government and politics is about hundreds times harder than getting companies to together and donate. Which in itself is no small feat. On one hand I wish a single government, EU or US will fund the whole thing and be proud and say it is such a pathetic small amount of money for so much good we are doing it anyway. Gets point for some international recognition or political power or whatever politicians wants. On the other hand you know this wont happen.
    - kbsspl 5y ago
      And maybe we should have to navigate the legitimately elected international governments over standards that almost always slant the field.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Whose food are you talking about? The people who write standards are usually paid by their employers (I've seen a few volunteers / enthusiasts too). They have food on the table, and the companies benefit from funding that work. After the work is done, distributing the result is virtually free. There's no need to extort hundreds of dollars for a 30-page PDF whose contents were written two decades ago by salaried employees. It's reality for IETF (and many other organizations) and I don't see why it couldn't work elsewhere. Somehow we need to find a way to upset the status quo, the same way Let's Encrypt has done for TLS certs and the way open journals are slowly gaining mindshare over extortionist publications. The challenge with standards is that they remain useful for a long time and you need interoperability (unlike with certs that you renew every year or three and which you can get from any number of CAs). Everyone wants to use the existing and established standards instead of reinventing the wheel, and we can't just copy the existing standards (though maybe we could "recreate" fully compatible standards because you can't copyright facts?). This is not a business problem, this is an entrenchment problem. And I guess there are some (big) companies that benefit from entrenchment and regulatory capture so it's in their interest to maintain the status quo. Naturally, everyone on ISO/IEC/IPC/etc payroll has an interest in maintaining the status quo.
bagol 5y ago
Why is a standard not freely available?
- mrweasel 5y ago
  I'd go so far as to say: How can it be a standard, if not freely available?
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > […] How can it be a standard […] Because people agree to use it and design against it.
tannhaeuser 5y ago
I'm not saying ISO shouldn't make standards freely available, but I think there might be a misunderstanding here: 1. it's not necessarily ISO themselves who insist on fees; rather, often times it used to be spec authors who negotiate rights to publish standard text as a book with much needed commentary beyond the bare spec text, as a way to get any financial compensation at all for experts in the field. The conflict here being a high price for standards pushing buyers into purchasing the book instead. 2. ISO, ITU-T, etc. are delicate international agreements between national standard bodies, (former) national telecoms, non-profits, etc. with diverse legal status and legacy. Reaching consensus through any process involving as many parties is easier said than done; our self-acclaimed "standardization bodies" in IT/Web aren't exactly examples of progress, participation, and representation, to say the least, given that we've reached a stadium of defacto monopolization and stagnation
- herghost 5y ago
  So they're essentially the TicketMaster of standards. Everyone pretends to hate them, but it's only really the end users who suffer them.
jmrm 5y ago
Yeah, it should be free for everyone, but in that situation the ISO company won't get the same amount of money. They are an NGO, but AFAIK they aren't non-profit.
lbriner 5y ago
100% agree! I am very angry that standards that were paid for by taxpayers around the world were then given by governments to the ISO who then charge for very minimal work done afterwards. For example, BS3939 was created by the UK Government for electronic symbols and as far as I know, has not been updated since 1991 when an ISO document took it over. Why would they, therefore, be charging $250+ per copy for it? I think there should be a phrase like "immoral bureaucracy" which pertains to the extraordinary amount of money a quango burns through compared to what they actually produce. Since most ISO docs are produced by experts and not by the ISO themselves and since many of these do not change frequently, the cost is immoral imho.
- lbriner 5y ago
  JUst to correct my original comment, this example is actually the IEC, and is only around $100, and is not the ISO but I think the same argument stands!
- unwind 5y ago
  In case any other non-native speakers wonder about "quango" it seems to be from quasi-NGO [1], where of course NGO means a non-governmental organization. A new one for me! [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    I think that article is wrong; I think that acronym is of British origin, in the 80s, and it expanded as "Quasi-autonomous non-government organization" (which the article refers to as a "backronym"). That's the expansion I have always encountered since I first came across the acronym. "Quasi-NGO" doesn't have anything for the 'A' (OTOH, none of the expansions offers an explanation of the 'U', I guess) "Quasi" means "like", or "fake". It's the autonomy of a QUANGO that is fake, not its non-governmentalness.
- PoignardAzur 5y ago
  > I think there should be a phrase like "immoral bureaucracy" which pertains to the extraordinary amount of money a quango burns through compared to what they actually produce Rent-seeking?
NtrllyIntrstd 5y ago
A standard behind a paywall is a paid opinion.
- kbsspl 5y ago
  This should be on a currency
rolandog 5y ago
IMHO, the ISO standards are a walled garden of agreements and—arguably—best practices, but I feel that they also serve as a barrier of entry for small and middle-sized businesses. I would guess that the Right To Repair movement would benefit indirectly from an increasing adoption and availability of standardized parts and procedures. I think that ISO needs to be decoupled from the modern capitalistic market, because IMHO they may consider—paradoxically—that the complete adoption of standards is an existential threat for them.
zivkovicp 5y ago
They have to make money somehow, otherwise they go out of business and everyone loses. If you are involved in a project that absolutely requires compliance with an ISO standard, you are very likely making money from that project as well, and you should have factored the cost of the standard into that. On the bright side, most university libraries, and I imagine many public libraries, will have access to these standards for members.
- kbsspl 5y ago
  It's probably more about the standard becoming a moat. Let there be no standards.
  - andylynch 5y ago
    This might work in emerging fields, but only to a very limited point. There was a great example many years ago in Baltimore often cited where many firefighters came from cities nearby to help fire a massive fire, only to find they couldn’t because their hoses didn’t fit the local hydrants- this directly led to better building codes and fire equipment compatibility standards. The number of other mundane and important things where standards make lives better is too vast to count- this includes everything from the screws and nails in your house to the APIs your bank uses to handle your payment cards, to the fact that you can expect the food you eat is fit to consume.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gardaani 5y ago
This was started by Jon Sneyers, co-chair of the JPEG XL (ISO/IEC 18181) group. He said: "Specifically for JPEG XL (or codecs in general), a free spec makes it a lot easier for external enthusiasts to make an alternative implementation" https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/31/iso_paywall_battle/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/31/iso_paywall_battle/
- octorian 5y ago
  Yeah, this is something that so many of the comments here seem to miss. Simply having to pay for the standard is an enormous barrier to access for anyone doing anything of a non-professional nature with the information. It almost doesn't even matter what the price tag is. Just the fact that you can't say "read the spec, here's a link" to someone with casual interest in a forum post is enough.
kbsspl 5y ago
ABSOLUTELY
RenThraysk 5y ago
ISO pricing came up in a discussion had elsewhere recently. Particularly about this "Ships and marine technology -- Survival equipment for survival craft and rescue boats" https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-18813-2006 https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-18813-2006 About potential life saving equipment, and it's behind a paywall. Seems wrong, and the US Coast Guard are starting to reference it. Related concern was the US Coast Guard are no longer certifying certain equipment, so it moves the burden from USCG to private individuals & companies to ensure their safety equipment meets the required standards. No doubt insurance companies will look into whether the equipment meets the standard, and if not then refuse to pay out.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  > About potential life saving equipment, and it's behind a paywall. Seems wrong Wait till you hear about all the EN standards.. everything from electrical safety to fire alarms, etc. All paywalled.
rightbyte 5y ago
I think it is good that some expensive boring bureaucratic org takes care of the standards. The new age of "throw the data into a pile and let ML sort it" does not work. You need secretaries in the end to keep track of things and those need pay.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  So you want IETF to start charging for internet standards? Do you think they use too much ML? Can you show me which one of their standards suffers from this problem? (My experience is that IETF puts out vastly better stuff than whatever garbage ends up in EN standards)
tialaramex 5y ago
The standards organisation costs money. This particular standards organisation, ISO, exclusively has members which are sovereign entities (technically, the national standards organisations of those sovereign entities) So if you want the documents to be free, the sovereign entities are going to have to pay for that. In practice, I can already tell you that if they were supposed to pay for this the United States will have some excuse for why it doesn't want to pay or its fees will always be late. But even if you aren't a US citizen, this is something your government chooses not to pay for.
- lupire 5y ago
  Thus is 100% the correct answer. The ISO is like the UN. It has no sovereign power.
dark-star 5y ago
It looks like the poster confused "publicly available" with "freely available". The standards are already publicly available, they're just not free. As for free, I guess someone needs to pay all the engineers that develop these standards, so unless OP comes up with a different model of paying the engineers, this proposal is useless
- dagw 5y ago
  I guess someone needs to pay all the engineers that develop these standards As has been pointed out several times in this thread, the people developing these standards are not paid in any way by the organization publishing and selling the standards. On the whole they're paid by the companies or universities they already work for and develop these standards as part of their work duties.
  - dark-star 5y ago
    Okay, then how about the people working in the company publishing the specs, there are lectors, editors, people who actually write the documentation so that it's readable, proof-readers, etc. and THEY need to be paid.
    - dagw 5y ago
      Again, hardly any of those people are paid by the standards organization. If they wanted to ISO could fund itself on its membership fees.
jacquesm 5y ago
Standards that are not available to the general public are like the law not being available to the general public. You're supposed to follow and be compliant but you are not allowed to know what to follow and be compliant with.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
  Not just that, but when a company or process is ISO-whatever certified, how am I supposed to know what that means? (The technical rules, not the marketing.) If I need to pay to read the criteria for it, that certification might as well be meaningless.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes, very frustrating this. I totally agree that all ISO standards - in fact, all standards and all laws - should be freely available. Nothing else makes sense.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      The obvious solution is to simply copy the text of the standard into the legislation that relies on it. But many standards that people need to be able to refer to are not referenced in legislation; this includes many standards that are needed for interoperability. In that respect, ISO is providing big companies with an anti-competition 'moat'.
zoobab 5y ago
Microsoft corruption of ISO to buy its own standard for OOXML: https://noooxml.wikidot.com/ https://noooxml.wikidot.com/ http://noooxml.wdfiles.com/local--files/banners/ISO-DiscreditedByMS.png http://noooxml.wdfiles.com/local--files/banners/ISO-Discredi...
steve76 5y ago
I am interested in riding a bus. I flip off the bus driver on the side of the road. The bus blows right by me spraying water and throwing garbage. I hop on and and take the wheel. The bus driver pulls out a tire iron and knocks my teeth out. I walk on the bus, sit down, and shut up, wait, and then leave. I rode a bus. If this is a problem, standards are not for you. ISO policies and industrial standards are terse. "Create standard work procedures and a framework for enforcement" or "Weld is to be continuous and free of splatter". It's a mistake to think their objective is to be business friendly. Often it's the opposite, and born out of the time when the entire Pacific ocean was a battle zone. Captured markets do not pleasantly become standard utilities. You're dealing with resources on a national scale that are working fine. Mess up, everyone dies. It's supposed to be inaccessible and closed off and insular. Work the job they give you if you want to do this. $26 trillion a year economy. There's a place there for you there if you want it.
jaclaz 5y ago
I would add that sometimes you would want to know what actual tests are made on something in order to classify it according to the relevant ISO norm. Here is an example for fire resistant classification: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770
fnordfnordfnord 5y ago
Standards, building codes, especially residential building codes. Any time violating code is effectively violating the law, codes should be free (online) or very very low cost (hard copy).
jridgewell 5y ago
Google Docs will eventually be overloaded with all the people accessing the doc. Linking to the [Preview] version helps, because it doesn't have to load the multi-user edit interface. [Preview]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Gmy2s4Nmkw6VDv2B6b5K1DLYhPrTUqSntrlmYzJpNw/preview https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Gmy2s4Nmkw6VDv2B6b5K1DL...
- ayush--s 5y ago
  this is the non-vandalized version of the doc if anyone's looking for it
ademarre 5y ago
Paying for standards is acceptable in a context where you are given a requirement to conform to some industry standard. But that is rarely how it works in software and networking. Instead of being told what specific standards are needed, often it is a process of exploration and discovery to learn what standards may be relevant to certain aspects of a system you are developing. For example, I might read parts of a dozen different cross-referenced IETF RFCs just to decide what flavor of URL syntax I should accept in my API. At other times I might not even know whether a relevant standard already exists, so I skim a bunch of standards just to confirm it is necessary to invent a new thing. This would be very expensive in ISO Land, and the reality would be that the standards are never used. Non-free standards for software and networking impede innovation. I can't imagine what the internet would look like today if the IETF and W3C charged for access to standards.
satisfice 5y ago
Many of the ISO standards are available for free via some form of illegal but highly moral pirating. My concern is more that the ISO process is corrupt, and many ISO standards in the realm of software engineering are not standards in any practical sense of the word. I admire ISO/IEC 60601, however.
MadWombat 5y ago
DO NOT CLICK THE LINK Whatever document was there before have been vandalized.
thatsillyqaguy 5y ago
Why are there some kids pics on this url?
- WaffleIronMaker 5y ago
  Because they left suggesting mode on, so anyone who sees the document can add to it. Change the document to "view" mode in the top right to see the original.
Netch 5y ago
As any unlimitedly editable documents this one has been vandalized :( there is no more point to visit it.
- aufhebung 5y ago
  If you click view mode in the top right the original is shown. Suggestion mode, not edit mode is enabled. Edit: I scrolled down and saw a picture of a very young child (clothed thankfully) and a decapitated penis. I would suggest people avoid the document
- jonsneyers 5y ago
  Cleaned it up. Sigh.
ponsfrilus 5y ago
The doc has been hacked with NSFW content :( how can it be reported?
- jonsneyers 5y ago
  It wasn't hacked, people just abused the option to comment and add suggestions. I had to make the document read-only to stop these immature trolls. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a setting in Google docs to allow only non-anonymous comments (and to revoke permission to comment to abusing accounts).
  - efreak 5y ago
    Since I can't make a suggested edit, I'll make my suggestion here: please explain CHF as Swiss francs; unlike most other countries, the two letter code is not enough to guess the country name. Looking it up, it seems to be the country's name in Latin, which led me into a Wikipedia rabbit hole that ended say the Spanish Reconquista before I realized what I was doing. The PDF standard is another standard that is locked up, despite the earlier versions being fully open before Adobe gave it up.
michele_f 5y ago
I'm not sure whether that is a viable option: after all ISO is a company. But it always stroke me as a paradox the fact that in order to be compliant to standards, one should buy their specifications. Certainly, removing such financial barrier will positively contribute to a quicker adoption and convergence of/to standards. At the same time, I don't buy in the narrative that sees the ISO organization not wanting precisely that. Therefore I suspect that the current way of promoting standards is unfortunately the best system we've came up to achieve such goal.

565 points by yegle 5y ago

Here is a piece of ISO insanity - how to secure your *home* network - 499USD. https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/ISO/ISOIEC3010027001HomeNetwork https://webstore.ansi.org/Standards/ISO/ISOIEC3010027001Home...

rdpintqogeogsaa 5y ago
Looking at the (publicly available) introduction of ISO/IEC 30100-1[0], ISO/IEC 30100 is about how to ensure secure interoperability of devices and software intended for home networks, not for individuals managing their own network. [0] https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:30100:-1:ed-1:v1:en https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:30100:-1:ed-1:v1...

parasense 5y ago

Does anybody remember back in the early 2000's when ISO attempted a passive-aggressive coup on the TIA/ANSI standard for Category Ethernet cabling? For Years the TIA ( Telecommunications Industry Association) was evolving "Category Cable" standards, then one day the ISO declared a new category cable with a sequential number bump of the previous TIA standard, which was cat-6. ISO called their so-called new standard Cat-7. I write so-called because there was already preliminary draft work on the same technology by members of the incumbent standards body (TIA). Pretty much ISO modified the TIA's existing draft with a certain member company's ideological opinion on new cable connectors, and rushed it out. I won't say which ISO member company was pushing hard for their concept of Cat-7, but it was a large European technology company in-and-around Germany, and they had an idea to introduce new cable connectors for which they owned the patent. The new connectors improved interference, and thus improved bandwidth, etc... but were not the backwards compatible traditional RJ-45 style connector the Americans in the TIA were keen to preserve. This was the most down-played and suppressed drama of all time. Both parties played it very diplomatically, and made absolutely zero public fuss about the issue of ISO attempting to assert itself into another standards body's domain. You may have noticed one or two belligerent nerds on IRC chatting pedantically about this topic every few years. Mostly one clueful nerd saying there is no such thing as Category-7 cable, as if to say that if the TIA doesn't make the standard for cable, it doesn't exist, etc... while another would say that any standards body can make a standard, etc... implying that they didn't care who makes the standard. Regardless, it was well outside the zeitgeist of Networking professionals in the industry, meaning your average network administrators. That is why the ISO thought they could get away with the scandal. Ultimately the issue was resolved when the TIA established Cat-6a, and then Cat-8, thereby re-establishing their line in the row of category cables. Cat-7 was simultaneously ignored by most-all the members of the TIA member companies, and not certified by many vendors for interoperability. That said, Cat-7 was interoperable using RJ-45 style connectors. It was a sort of industry wide scarlet-letter, the TIA was going to make Cat-7 irrelevant by having the previous standard adopt sub-categories, E.G. cat-6a, cat-6b, etc... And of course reasserting itself sequentially in the versioning scheme they themselves created. Finally, the ISO was going to do the same thing to networking cables, lock the standard away behind closed doors, but they had misappropriated the technology from an open standard. It's probably unethical, or at least shady. To them it was a new potential revenue stream, and pursing the interests of one of their committee member. All around it stank of collusion, conspiracy, and cronyism.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

I had to just buy a new version of a standard/paper… $250, out of pocket, and it was mostly typos and clarifications that make the :2020 version better than the :2016 version. I had to pay to find out nothing really changed. Yes. They should be free. No. They never will be.

kuroguro 5y ago

I don't get how a standard behind a paywall is even considered a standard. Imagine you had to pay to find out what a meter is.

Arnt 5y ago
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0024QL8MC https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0024QL8MC ?
- thrdbndndn 5y ago
  Rekt
- croon 5y ago
  > The metre is currently defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second. There, that's free. I understand yours is likely just a joke, but you're paying for the tool, not the definition.
  - Arnt 5y ago
    It was… a serious joke. GP: "Imagine you had to pay to find out what a meter is." I posted a link to a device that'll tell you whether something is a meter, or more, or less. Now, that wasn't what GP had in mind, but it matches the words. So what did GP have in mind? Perhaps something more like a definition? Wikipedia supplies that (and wants you to pay, there's a promiment banner at the top of the page). Britannica supplies a definition (and requires you to pay). Your school books supplied a definition (and the school paid for that, and for the teacher who made you read it, and more). ISO supplies that, and requires you to pay, like all the others. I like free stuff as much as the next guy, but having to pay isn't "imagine that", it's the normal case. In the case of ISO the readers pay around half the cost and the writers pay the other half. You can argue that the the costs should be split differently, but please not by saying "imagine that".
    - croon 5y ago
      In all your examples you are paying someone to print something. Wikipedia asks you to pay for hosting, staff and further development (if you want to). But no one has copyright on the definition of a metre. You are free to type it on a paper and give it to as many people as you'd like. That's what free means. Can I copy ISO standards freely?

Bancakes 5y ago

Taxation without representation. Anyone who pays for standards should be able to vote alongside committees and perpetuate the development.

rjsw 5y ago
You have representation, your National Standards Body is your representative and votes on your behalf.

causi 5y ago

I would've expected sci-hub to have a complete collection of ISO standards.

grive 5y ago
When you buy an ISO standard, it is marked by the buyer ID. To make it publicly available, you need to strip it. That means the file must be modified, and the tampered copy must be stored somewhere. Sci-hub has a different model: it is decentralized because it lends credentials to download protected articles. It does not store them. It cannot remain decentralized if it stored or cached the content. I looked into it to write a QR-code tool. Getting the standard was a bullshit process and I wasn't going to pay that much for a side-project. I did not write the tool as a result, even though I'm not happy with the one existing on linux (though, thanks a lot to its author, who did so using the standard at personal cost for public benefit). The solution I found was to buy it properly, but go through eastern-Europe countries, to make it cheaper. Still bullshit to have to buy a standard for common tooling necessary to interact with everyday life.
- Kliment 5y ago
  Sci-hub does in fact cache and store everything. They have articles available that are no longer available from the original source.
  - grive 5y ago
    Indeed! I was working with false assumptions, thanks for correcting them.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > I looked into it to write a QR-code tool. > Getting the standard was a bullshit process and I wasn't going to pay that much for a side-project. I was once in a similar situation. Needed the document in order to understand QR codes so I could contribute to the zbar project. Was forced to use some outdated draft I found online. I simply don't understand the point of this gatekeeping. IETF RFCs are how things should be done.

goblin89 5y ago

The $XXX a business would spend on standards is insignificant compared to $XXXXX+ it has to give consultants in return for understanding how to actually comply with those impenetrable walls of text enough to pass an audit.

Kichererbsen 5y ago
That's exactly the point: Any business that can afford to spend on standards doesn't want to change any of this, because it helps keep out disruptors.
- goblin89 5y ago
  My point was that (1) standards aren’t well-written if reading them is not enough to understand how to implement them in your business, (2) this benefits consultants (some of whom are involved with ISO, I’m not sure if possible conflicts of interest are taken care of), and (3) the proposal of this public letter does nothing to address the status quo.
number6 5y ago
As a consultant who is getting $XXXX+ for implementing the $XXX standards: most institutions could do without my consulting, but they don't because it is not the expertise they lack but the time and manpower, plus I implement this standards for a living and thus have a higher proficiency which reduces the project time by a factor of 2 + I can get some assistance on the job. But you can easily pass an audit if you actually READ the standards...
- wheelinsupial 5y ago
  > But you can easily pass an audit if you actually READ the standards... I worked in automotive manufacturing at one point. We had to follow an automotive specific extension (ISO/TS 16949 at the time) to the ISO 9001 standard in addition to a set of AIAG Automotive Core Tools (a set of 5 books). Our auditor was being audited by one of the people who was on the extension work group and the Core Tools work group. We definitely read the standards and were found to have 13 major non-conformances. We were told there are courses the working group offers to "teach the proper way to read the documents." Maybe it's different in other industries, but my experience is you have to buy the documents, buy the courses to learn to read the documents, buy the courses to learn how to do internal audits, and then maybe you'll have the knowledge to complete the certification. But as you say, it will be quicker to use a consultant, so you add on consulting fees after all of those other expenses. Then you pay annually to be audited so you can maintain the license. It's the cost of doing business and definitely had a huge ROI where I worked.

BayesianDice 5y ago

I did recently discover that the Estonian standards agency makes ISO standards available, not for free, but significantly more cheaply than other sources I found when trying to locate standards (although I didn't end up using it so don't know any more than is on the public Web site): https://www.evs.ee/en/ https://www.evs.ee/en/

danbruc 5y ago
At least for some - I randomly picked ISO 8601-1:2019 - there is even an option to buy 24 hours of access. In this example a PDF from ISO [1] is €150, from EVS [2] €19 and 24 hours access is only €2.40. [1] https://www.iso.org/standard/70907.html https://www.iso.org/standard/70907.html [2] https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-iso-8601-1-2019 https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-iso-8601-1-2019
- atsaloli 5y ago
  As an IT Operations practitioner I want to better understand SQL, so I wanted to look at the SQL standard. What used to be one document is now over a dozen -- it seems that part 2 (SQL/Foundation) deals with the SQL language basics, which is what I need right now. It's about USD 250 via the Estonian web site (https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-iec-9075-2-2016 https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-iec-9075-2-2016) It's about USD 215 from ISO directly: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9075:-2:ed-5:v1:en https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9075:-2:ed-5:v1:... I am a member of the ACM and I reached out to them but it's not in their digital library. I am looking for a legal yet economical way to obtain the standard. I am willing to pay $20 but not $200.
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    I'm not sure if this is right, but the Dutch standards body seems to have this document available [0] for free with part of it available for evaluation [1] and it seems like it's the real deal. Most other parts of the standard a shit ton of money (>€200 per part, with over 12 paid parts), but some others [2] are free as well. There are also outdated versions of the document available for free or cheap if those suit your needs, but I'm sure you can find cheaper alternatives for that as well. I don't know if there are any requirements for access (like an address in the Netherlands, or Dutch citizenship) but it seems like you can just grab the standard from here completely legally. [0]: https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-2-2016-c1-2019-en-263083 https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-2-2016-c1-2019-en-263... [1]: https://www.nen.nl/en/norm/pdf/preview/document/263083/ https://www.nen.nl/en/norm/pdf/preview/document/263083/ [2]: https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-9-2016-c1-2019-en-263078 https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-9-2016-c1-2019-en-263... https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-4-2016-c1-2019-en-263077 https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-4-2016-c1-2019-en-263...

parksy 5y ago

What bugs me is so much of our (Australia's) government's policies over time have increasingly deferred to some ISO standard or another. These days most agencies / departments are stipulating some form of ISO27k compliance from vendors, a standard that can only be purchased from ISO. Given we pay our taxes to the government, and I would have thought defining policy standards was one of the services we pay tax to have (what better thing for governments to do than what they're naturally geared towards - bureaucracy?), at the very least they would be able to directly and in detail outline the standards they expect and not simply handball the entire definition and auditing off to an international organisation and myriad consultancies with the stroke of a single bullet point requirement in the RFx. The quagmire of ISO consultancies are often charging exorbitant rates to deliver essentially a set of Excel templates, when the hard work of adopting a standard really is all in-house and any company with a copy of the standards and the templates can pretty much get it all done internally then get certified. And ultimately when it comes down to it, the standard doesn't really do much to improve quality outcomes, especially for an organisation that doesn't give a fig. A well intentioned company that's on the ball will already be following best practices, a shady company that plays cowboy will do the bare minimum to get the badge. Anyway, just an axe I tend to grind. Standards definitely are needed and have their place but holy hell is it a mess ATM. There needs to be an independent open source standards body, ISO is a farce IMHO - the standards as they are written are actually decent but their business model and hands-off approach to auditing and verifying standard adherence is a big issue across multiple sectors I think.

webmaven 5y ago
> a shady company that plays cowboy will do the bare minimum to get the badge. Isn't that part of the point of having a standard? That the bare minimum done by shady companies is actually enough to prevent adverse outcomes?
roenxi 5y ago
Dim memory suggests that Standards Australia [0] is required by numerous pieces of legislation. SA is not only privately owned, but I believe bought out by Chinese interests. Not that I mind the Chinese part, but it just adds a delicious surrealness to the situation. I suppose it is better that they control the standards rather than the clowns in government who can't even manage standards. [0] https://www.standards.org.au/ https://www.standards.org.au/

foxfluff 5y ago

IMO a "standard" that isn't publicly available free of charge (like the laws) should have no legal standing (i.e. national bodies and laws should never defer to such standards or demand compliance). Otherwise it's just an opaque law that only the rich get to read. Now if companies want to make gentleman's agreements to follow each others' paywalled standards.. by all means. But they don't get to complain if others violate these standards left and right.

kbsspl 5y ago
agreed!

ksec 5y ago

It is not that I am against Open Standard or even Open Source. But someone has to somehow put food on the table. Without a sustainable source of income or a business model it is a lot of wishful thinking. We dont have a policy problem. We have a business problem. Or a Go to market problem ( so to speak ). And this document doesn't seems to outline any solution.

teddyh 5y ago
The purpose of a standard is to aid the betterment of all users of it. The development of a standard should be supported by the funds which would be saved by the existence of a standard. Note that those who benefit from the existence of a standard is not only the participating companies, but also often the public at large, over a long period of time. This is why the government should contribute to the funds necessary to develop those standards. If there are standards which would not save enough money for either the companies involved or the public at large, those standards have no business being developed.
- ksec 5y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree. But the moment we get to government, we ran into politics. And this isn't local government either but International level. And navigating government and politics is about hundreds times harder than getting companies to together and donate. Which in itself is no small feat. On one hand I wish a single government, EU or US will fund the whole thing and be proud and say it is such a pathetic small amount of money for so much good we are doing it anyway. Gets point for some international recognition or political power or whatever politicians wants. On the other hand you know this wont happen.
  - kbsspl 5y ago
    And maybe we should have to navigate the legitimately elected international governments over standards that almost always slant the field.
foxfluff 5y ago
Whose food are you talking about? The people who write standards are usually paid by their employers (I've seen a few volunteers / enthusiasts too). They have food on the table, and the companies benefit from funding that work. After the work is done, distributing the result is virtually free. There's no need to extort hundreds of dollars for a 30-page PDF whose contents were written two decades ago by salaried employees. It's reality for IETF (and many other organizations) and I don't see why it couldn't work elsewhere. Somehow we need to find a way to upset the status quo, the same way Let's Encrypt has done for TLS certs and the way open journals are slowly gaining mindshare over extortionist publications. The challenge with standards is that they remain useful for a long time and you need interoperability (unlike with certs that you renew every year or three and which you can get from any number of CAs). Everyone wants to use the existing and established standards instead of reinventing the wheel, and we can't just copy the existing standards (though maybe we could "recreate" fully compatible standards because you can't copyright facts?). This is not a business problem, this is an entrenchment problem. And I guess there are some (big) companies that benefit from entrenchment and regulatory capture so it's in their interest to maintain the status quo. Naturally, everyone on ISO/IEC/IPC/etc payroll has an interest in maintaining the status quo.

bagol 5y ago

Why is a standard not freely available?

mrweasel 5y ago
I'd go so far as to say: How can it be a standard, if not freely available?
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > […] How can it be a standard […] Because people agree to use it and design against it.

tannhaeuser 5y ago

I'm not saying ISO shouldn't make standards freely available, but I think there might be a misunderstanding here: 1. it's not necessarily ISO themselves who insist on fees; rather, often times it used to be spec authors who negotiate rights to publish standard text as a book with much needed commentary beyond the bare spec text, as a way to get any financial compensation at all for experts in the field. The conflict here being a high price for standards pushing buyers into purchasing the book instead. 2. ISO, ITU-T, etc. are delicate international agreements between national standard bodies, (former) national telecoms, non-profits, etc. with diverse legal status and legacy. Reaching consensus through any process involving as many parties is easier said than done; our self-acclaimed "standardization bodies" in IT/Web aren't exactly examples of progress, participation, and representation, to say the least, given that we've reached a stadium of defacto monopolization and stagnation

herghost 5y ago
So they're essentially the TicketMaster of standards. Everyone pretends to hate them, but it's only really the end users who suffer them.

jmrm 5y ago

Yeah, it should be free for everyone, but in that situation the ISO company won't get the same amount of money. They are an NGO, but AFAIK they aren't non-profit.

lbriner 5y ago

100% agree! I am very angry that standards that were paid for by taxpayers around the world were then given by governments to the ISO who then charge for very minimal work done afterwards. For example, BS3939 was created by the UK Government for electronic symbols and as far as I know, has not been updated since 1991 when an ISO document took it over. Why would they, therefore, be charging $250+ per copy for it? I think there should be a phrase like "immoral bureaucracy" which pertains to the extraordinary amount of money a quango burns through compared to what they actually produce. Since most ISO docs are produced by experts and not by the ISO themselves and since many of these do not change frequently, the cost is immoral imho.

lbriner 5y ago
JUst to correct my original comment, this example is actually the IEC, and is only around $100, and is not the ISO but I think the same argument stands!
unwind 5y ago
In case any other non-native speakers wonder about "quango" it seems to be from quasi-NGO [1], where of course NGO means a non-governmental organization. A new one for me! [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  I think that article is wrong; I think that acronym is of British origin, in the 80s, and it expanded as "Quasi-autonomous non-government organization" (which the article refers to as a "backronym"). That's the expansion I have always encountered since I first came across the acronym. "Quasi-NGO" doesn't have anything for the 'A' (OTOH, none of the expansions offers an explanation of the 'U', I guess) "Quasi" means "like", or "fake". It's the autonomy of a QUANGO that is fake, not its non-governmentalness.
PoignardAzur 5y ago
> I think there should be a phrase like "immoral bureaucracy" which pertains to the extraordinary amount of money a quango burns through compared to what they actually produce Rent-seeking?

NtrllyIntrstd 5y ago

A standard behind a paywall is a paid opinion.

kbsspl 5y ago
This should be on a currency

rolandog 5y ago

IMHO, the ISO standards are a walled garden of agreements and—arguably—best practices, but I feel that they also serve as a barrier of entry for small and middle-sized businesses. I would guess that the Right To Repair movement would benefit indirectly from an increasing adoption and availability of standardized parts and procedures. I think that ISO needs to be decoupled from the modern capitalistic market, because IMHO they may consider—paradoxically—that the complete adoption of standards is an existential threat for them.

zivkovicp 5y ago

They have to make money somehow, otherwise they go out of business and everyone loses. If you are involved in a project that absolutely requires compliance with an ISO standard, you are very likely making money from that project as well, and you should have factored the cost of the standard into that. On the bright side, most university libraries, and I imagine many public libraries, will have access to these standards for members.

kbsspl 5y ago
It's probably more about the standard becoming a moat. Let there be no standards.
- andylynch 5y ago
  This might work in emerging fields, but only to a very limited point. There was a great example many years ago in Baltimore often cited where many firefighters came from cities nearby to help fire a massive fire, only to find they couldn’t because their hoses didn’t fit the local hydrants- this directly led to better building codes and fire equipment compatibility standards. The number of other mundane and important things where standards make lives better is too vast to count- this includes everything from the screws and nails in your house to the APIs your bank uses to handle your payment cards, to the fact that you can expect the food you eat is fit to consume.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

gardaani 5y ago

This was started by Jon Sneyers, co-chair of the JPEG XL (ISO/IEC 18181) group. He said: "Specifically for JPEG XL (or codecs in general), a free spec makes it a lot easier for external enthusiasts to make an alternative implementation" https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/31/iso_paywall_battle/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/31/iso_paywall_battle/

octorian 5y ago
Yeah, this is something that so many of the comments here seem to miss. Simply having to pay for the standard is an enormous barrier to access for anyone doing anything of a non-professional nature with the information. It almost doesn't even matter what the price tag is. Just the fact that you can't say "read the spec, here's a link" to someone with casual interest in a forum post is enough.

kbsspl 5y ago

ABSOLUTELY

RenThraysk 5y ago

ISO pricing came up in a discussion had elsewhere recently. Particularly about this "Ships and marine technology -- Survival equipment for survival craft and rescue boats" https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-18813-2006 https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-18813-2006 About potential life saving equipment, and it's behind a paywall. Seems wrong, and the US Coast Guard are starting to reference it. Related concern was the US Coast Guard are no longer certifying certain equipment, so it moves the burden from USCG to private individuals & companies to ensure their safety equipment meets the required standards. No doubt insurance companies will look into whether the equipment meets the standard, and if not then refuse to pay out.

foxfluff 5y ago
> About potential life saving equipment, and it's behind a paywall. Seems wrong Wait till you hear about all the EN standards.. everything from electrical safety to fire alarms, etc. All paywalled.

rightbyte 5y ago

I think it is good that some expensive boring bureaucratic org takes care of the standards. The new age of "throw the data into a pile and let ML sort it" does not work. You need secretaries in the end to keep track of things and those need pay.

foxfluff 5y ago
So you want IETF to start charging for internet standards? Do you think they use too much ML? Can you show me which one of their standards suffers from this problem? (My experience is that IETF puts out vastly better stuff than whatever garbage ends up in EN standards)

tialaramex 5y ago

The standards organisation costs money. This particular standards organisation, ISO, exclusively has members which are sovereign entities (technically, the national standards organisations of those sovereign entities) So if you want the documents to be free, the sovereign entities are going to have to pay for that. In practice, I can already tell you that if they were supposed to pay for this the United States will have some excuse for why it doesn't want to pay or its fees will always be late. But even if you aren't a US citizen, this is something your government chooses not to pay for.

lupire 5y ago
Thus is 100% the correct answer. The ISO is like the UN. It has no sovereign power.

dark-star 5y ago

It looks like the poster confused "publicly available" with "freely available". The standards are already publicly available, they're just not free. As for free, I guess someone needs to pay all the engineers that develop these standards, so unless OP comes up with a different model of paying the engineers, this proposal is useless

dagw 5y ago
I guess someone needs to pay all the engineers that develop these standards As has been pointed out several times in this thread, the people developing these standards are not paid in any way by the organization publishing and selling the standards. On the whole they're paid by the companies or universities they already work for and develop these standards as part of their work duties.
- dark-star 5y ago
  Okay, then how about the people working in the company publishing the specs, there are lectors, editors, people who actually write the documentation so that it's readable, proof-readers, etc. and THEY need to be paid.
  - dagw 5y ago
    Again, hardly any of those people are paid by the standards organization. If they wanted to ISO could fund itself on its membership fees.

jacquesm 5y ago

Standards that are not available to the general public are like the law not being available to the general public. You're supposed to follow and be compliant but you are not allowed to know what to follow and be compliant with.

theandrewbailey 5y ago
Not just that, but when a company or process is ISO-whatever certified, how am I supposed to know what that means? (The technical rules, not the marketing.) If I need to pay to read the criteria for it, that certification might as well be meaningless.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Yes, very frustrating this. I totally agree that all ISO standards - in fact, all standards and all laws - should be freely available. Nothing else makes sense.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    The obvious solution is to simply copy the text of the standard into the legislation that relies on it. But many standards that people need to be able to refer to are not referenced in legislation; this includes many standards that are needed for interoperability. In that respect, ISO is providing big companies with an anti-competition 'moat'.

zoobab 5y ago

Microsoft corruption of ISO to buy its own standard for OOXML: https://noooxml.wikidot.com/ https://noooxml.wikidot.com/ http://noooxml.wdfiles.com/local--files/banners/ISO-DiscreditedByMS.png http://noooxml.wdfiles.com/local--files/banners/ISO-Discredi...

steve76 5y ago

I am interested in riding a bus. I flip off the bus driver on the side of the road. The bus blows right by me spraying water and throwing garbage. I hop on and and take the wheel. The bus driver pulls out a tire iron and knocks my teeth out. I walk on the bus, sit down, and shut up, wait, and then leave. I rode a bus. If this is a problem, standards are not for you. ISO policies and industrial standards are terse. "Create standard work procedures and a framework for enforcement" or "Weld is to be continuous and free of splatter". It's a mistake to think their objective is to be business friendly. Often it's the opposite, and born out of the time when the entire Pacific ocean was a battle zone. Captured markets do not pleasantly become standard utilities. You're dealing with resources on a national scale that are working fine. Mess up, everyone dies. It's supposed to be inaccessible and closed off and insular. Work the job they give you if you want to do this. $26 trillion a year economy. There's a place there for you there if you want it.

jaclaz 5y ago

I would add that sometimes you would want to know what actual tests are made on something in order to classify it according to the relevant ISO norm. Here is an example for fire resistant classification: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770

fnordfnordfnord 5y ago

Standards, building codes, especially residential building codes. Any time violating code is effectively violating the law, codes should be free (online) or very very low cost (hard copy).

jridgewell 5y ago

Google Docs will eventually be overloaded with all the people accessing the doc. Linking to the [Preview] version helps, because it doesn't have to load the multi-user edit interface. [Preview]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Gmy2s4Nmkw6VDv2B6b5K1DLYhPrTUqSntrlmYzJpNw/preview https://docs.google.com/document/d/12Gmy2s4Nmkw6VDv2B6b5K1DL...

ayush--s 5y ago
this is the non-vandalized version of the doc if anyone's looking for it

ademarre 5y ago

Paying for standards is acceptable in a context where you are given a requirement to conform to some industry standard. But that is rarely how it works in software and networking. Instead of being told what specific standards are needed, often it is a process of exploration and discovery to learn what standards may be relevant to certain aspects of a system you are developing. For example, I might read parts of a dozen different cross-referenced IETF RFCs just to decide what flavor of URL syntax I should accept in my API. At other times I might not even know whether a relevant standard already exists, so I skim a bunch of standards just to confirm it is necessary to invent a new thing. This would be very expensive in ISO Land, and the reality would be that the standards are never used. Non-free standards for software and networking impede innovation. I can't imagine what the internet would look like today if the IETF and W3C charged for access to standards.

satisfice 5y ago

Many of the ISO standards are available for free via some form of illegal but highly moral pirating. My concern is more that the ISO process is corrupt, and many ISO standards in the realm of software engineering are not standards in any practical sense of the word. I admire ISO/IEC 60601, however.

MadWombat 5y ago

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK Whatever document was there before have been vandalized.

thatsillyqaguy 5y ago

Why are there some kids pics on this url?

WaffleIronMaker 5y ago
Because they left suggesting mode on, so anyone who sees the document can add to it. Change the document to "view" mode in the top right to see the original.

Netch 5y ago

As any unlimitedly editable documents this one has been vandalized :( there is no more point to visit it.

aufhebung 5y ago
If you click view mode in the top right the original is shown. Suggestion mode, not edit mode is enabled. Edit: I scrolled down and saw a picture of a very young child (clothed thankfully) and a decapitated penis. I would suggest people avoid the document
jonsneyers 5y ago
Cleaned it up. Sigh.

ponsfrilus 5y ago

The doc has been hacked with NSFW content :( how can it be reported?

jonsneyers 5y ago
It wasn't hacked, people just abused the option to comment and add suggestions. I had to make the document read-only to stop these immature trolls. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a setting in Google docs to allow only non-anonymous comments (and to revoke permission to comment to abusing accounts).
- efreak 5y ago
  Since I can't make a suggested edit, I'll make my suggestion here: please explain CHF as Swiss francs; unlike most other countries, the two letter code is not enough to guess the country name. Looking it up, it seems to be the country's name in Latin, which led me into a Wikipedia rabbit hole that ended say the Spanish Reconquista before I realized what I was doing. The PDF standard is another standard that is locked up, despite the earlier versions being fully open before Adobe gave it up.

michele_f 5y ago

I'm not sure whether that is a viable option: after all ISO is a company. But it always stroke me as a paradox the fact that in order to be compliant to standards, one should buy their specifications. Certainly, removing such financial barrier will positively contribute to a quicker adoption and convergence of/to standards. At the same time, I don't buy in the narrative that sees the ISO organization not wanting precisely that. Therefore I suspect that the current way of promoting standards is unfortunately the best system we've came up to achieve such goal.