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 in

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