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That you dismiss the distinction out of opinion on its' importance proves you indeed missed it. Whether or not ISO needs to be paid for the work it does or not
by croon 5y ago
That you dismiss the distinction out of opinion on its' importance proves you indeed missed it.
Whether or not ISO needs to be paid for the work it does or not is irrelevant to the discussion on whether their standards are free (they're not) and the definition of a metre is (it is).
Opinion:
If governments use them for eg regulation, maybe they should be funded by governments and be a non-profit.
- Arnt 5y agoYes, well... I've both written actual standards and worked professionally on software that many non-users insisted should be licensed differently, and I suppose I've heard these arguments too often over the years and have become numb. Someone's intention is that something should be free (in some way in which it is not), the effect of the proposed change would be to stop the work to produce that something. It's a good intention every time, but I'm tired of having it stop there. Wake me up when the proposal is one that doesn't disrupt the funding. And remember that when any one stakeholder thinks two things are related, then they effectively are.
- Arnt 5y agoThis probably sounds as if I'm ignoring you, perhaps rudely. That's not entirely false. I heard so many people insist that some part of our business plan was irrelevant to the rest, it's really difficult to still really pay attention. The lesson from that is that if you want to change ISO's ways, you have to not sound like n previous people and trigger that reflex. Because ISO employs people who are much more polite than I am, but they too will stop listening if you sound like too many people they've rejected before, because that's a human reflex.