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> ISO 32000-2 was also, however, the first and only core PDF specification published exclusively — and only for purchase — by ISO, inhibiting its use and adopti

> ISO 32000-2 was also, however, the first and only core PDF specification published exclusively — and only for purchase — by ISO, inhibiting its use and adoption over the last five years. Who would have thought that "international standards" that require payment don't work well? How many people are willing to spend a couple hundred CHFs to access the PDF specs? Also it seems insane to me that the PDF creator, Adobe, now has to pay ANSI to distribute their own spec for free. For some reason you still need to "add to cart" the standards and they will ask you for your address and email. You don't need to provide real information for anything, not even email, they just redirect you to a page with download links. Also the EULA is insane. > You may install one copy of the Product on, and permit access to it by, a single computer owned, leased or otherwise controlled by you. In the event that computer becomes dysfunctional, such that you are unable to access the Product, you may transfer the Product to another computer, provided that the Product is removed from the computer from which it is transferred and the use of the Product on the replacement computer otherwise complies with the terms of this Agreement. Neither concurrent use on two or more computers nor use in a local area network or other network is permitted. You may print one copy of the Product for your personal use. You shall not merge, adapt, translate, modify, rent, lease, sell, sublicense, assign or otherwise transfer any of the Product, or remove any proprietary notice or label appearing on any of the Product. You may make one (1) copy the Product for backup purposes only. They don't even allow you to use it on your 2 devices at the same time. Complete nonsense that I'm sure everyone will follow.

vasco 4y ago
When nobody tells lawyers no, this is what happens. This protects nobody other than some lawyers feeling fuzzy that they "mitigated risks" for their customer.
- anticensor 4y ago
  What if they are not allowed to say no to lawyers?
  - sennight 4y ago
    Legal is a cost center, which means that they don't get to say no. Here is how that conversation goes: Lawyer: You must include my unenforceable EULA. Anyone-with-a-brain: lol, no. Your "contribution" to this project only serves to do the direct opposite of our stated intent... Actually, why are you involving yourself here - are you billing for this? Lawyer scampering noises recede into the distance
    - newaccount74 4y ago
      I think what a lot of people don't understand is that a lawyers job is to provide advise, not to make decisions.
      - bottled_poe 4y ago
        Poorly conceived advice apparently.
        DannyBee 4y ago
        Only in the minds of HN engineers. Lawyers who tell their clients to do nothing rather than actually help try to figure out a path forward go out of business very quickly. In-house counsel is a little different but again even at places like IBM the lawyers could not get away with blocking meaningful business
      - dsr_ 4y ago
        Specifically, lawyers advise their clients on how to avoid liability. The minimum liability comes from doing nothing, so the default advice is "Don't."
        lxgr 4y ago
        > The minimum liability comes from doing nothing You must be working in a very unregulated industry if that’s true!
- pas 4y ago
  this an old school organization, they don't really have any incentives to be user friendly. they manage a lot of standards, it's a stable gig, they are doing okay, so they did what usually old school organizations do, they got an EULA decade(s) ago and now it's just there and maybe gets updated from time to time. buf no one even questions the need for it. maybe if more things move online, if they face some serious competition, then they might start thinking about these as potential UX issues
qsort 4y ago
ISO C and ISO C++ also technically cost money.
- dawidpotocki 4y ago
  This is true, but that's not good either. Thankfully finding a final draft isn't hard for these, but we shouldn't have to do it in the first place.
johannes1234321 4y ago
This works for ISO standards in many areas. In many environments there are requirements to be standards-compliant. Buying the standard is a prove of compliance. (Turn it around: "you didn't even obtain the standard! How could your product be compliant?") This is of course mostly relevant for engineering. Less so in IT, but even IT standards compliance is sometimes part of government contracts. At least for language compilers. And yes, nobody will be able to verify the compliance, but commercial vendors document how well they comply to the standard and that limits the liability.
- radicalbyte 4y ago
  The specifications for the electronic driving license - recently agreed to by the EU as one of their core standards - is only available as (a number of) ISO specifications. ISO 18013-5 and co.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
Yep, it's a giant scam... Same for (a lot of) science.. You pay taxes to build universities, you pay taxes for professors and other educators paychecks, you pay taxes for research grants, and all that money from you is than used to 'discover' something, but you need to pay some private company to actually read the article. It's slowly changing, but still, a lot of science, for "poor people", is only available on pirate sites.
- transcriptase 4y ago
  Not just for poor people - I've had to pirate papers that I've co-authored.
  - stuckkeys 4y ago
    Damn. I would be ultra mad. Good for you for pirating.
throw0101c 4y ago
> Who would have thought that "international standards" that require payment don't work well? Who says that they don't work well? All of the manufactured goods that you own, and how they got transported (e.g., shipping containers, boats, fuel for boats, etc) are probably based a dozens of ISO (and ANSI, SAE, etc) standards that had to be paid for. It's been the norm for about a century and helped build the modern world. See Engineering rules: global standard setting since 1880 by Yates and Murphy for a history. There are some good lectures by them online as well: * https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-0 https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-0
- lxgr 4y ago
  Sure, but the current model is just ridiculous. 290 or so CHF* is probably less than the procurement bureaucratic overhead in a large corporation that bases an entire line of business on a given standard, yet is prohibitive for hobbyists and many open-source projects. A more reasonable model these days would probably be a per-seat license for an entire segment of the ISO library. As it is, I don’t even know if a given standard would actually be useful to have for my work, companies need to decide which employee(s) to license a copy for etc… * I’m surprised it’s not billed in special drawing rights.
  - 4pkjai 4y ago
    I run a business that extracts data from PDFs, even I couldn’t justify paying 290 CHF to buy a copy of the standard
    - gorkish 4y ago
      I found an error/omission in the PDF spec 20 years ago and it's still there despite my efforts to characterize and report it to the grand overlords of PDF. (There is no security implication, hence I am nobody.) When Apple eventually changed their implementation to be consistent with Adobe's, I gave up all further attempts as a waste of time. My errata document is available under a $5000/yr corporate subscription agreement to my personal standards and practices library. Sorry, I do not offer memberships to individuals.

vasco 4y ago

When nobody tells lawyers no, this is what happens. This protects nobody other than some lawyers feeling fuzzy that they "mitigated risks" for their customer.

anticensor 4y ago
What if they are not allowed to say no to lawyers?
- sennight 4y ago
  Legal is a cost center, which means that they don't get to say no. Here is how that conversation goes: Lawyer: You must include my unenforceable EULA. Anyone-with-a-brain: lol, no. Your "contribution" to this project only serves to do the direct opposite of our stated intent... Actually, why are you involving yourself here - are you billing for this? Lawyer scampering noises recede into the distance
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    I think what a lot of people don't understand is that a lawyers job is to provide advise, not to make decisions.
    - bottled_poe 4y ago
      Poorly conceived advice apparently.
      - DannyBee 4y ago
        Only in the minds of HN engineers. Lawyers who tell their clients to do nothing rather than actually help try to figure out a path forward go out of business very quickly. In-house counsel is a little different but again even at places like IBM the lawyers could not get away with blocking meaningful business
    - dsr_ 4y ago
      Specifically, lawyers advise their clients on how to avoid liability. The minimum liability comes from doing nothing, so the default advice is "Don't."
      - lxgr 4y ago
        > The minimum liability comes from doing nothing You must be working in a very unregulated industry if that’s true!
pas 4y ago
this an old school organization, they don't really have any incentives to be user friendly. they manage a lot of standards, it's a stable gig, they are doing okay, so they did what usually old school organizations do, they got an EULA decade(s) ago and now it's just there and maybe gets updated from time to time. buf no one even questions the need for it. maybe if more things move online, if they face some serious competition, then they might start thinking about these as potential UX issues

qsort 4y ago

ISO C and ISO C++ also technically cost money.

dawidpotocki 4y ago
This is true, but that's not good either. Thankfully finding a final draft isn't hard for these, but we shouldn't have to do it in the first place.

johannes1234321 4y ago

This works for ISO standards in many areas. In many environments there are requirements to be standards-compliant. Buying the standard is a prove of compliance. (Turn it around: "you didn't even obtain the standard! How could your product be compliant?") This is of course mostly relevant for engineering. Less so in IT, but even IT standards compliance is sometimes part of government contracts. At least for language compilers. And yes, nobody will be able to verify the compliance, but commercial vendors document how well they comply to the standard and that limits the liability.

radicalbyte 4y ago
The specifications for the electronic driving license - recently agreed to by the EU as one of their core standards - is only available as (a number of) ISO specifications. ISO 18013-5 and co.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

Yep, it's a giant scam... Same for (a lot of) science.. You pay taxes to build universities, you pay taxes for professors and other educators paychecks, you pay taxes for research grants, and all that money from you is than used to 'discover' something, but you need to pay some private company to actually read the article. It's slowly changing, but still, a lot of science, for "poor people", is only available on pirate sites.

transcriptase 4y ago
Not just for poor people - I've had to pirate papers that I've co-authored.
- stuckkeys 4y ago
  Damn. I would be ultra mad. Good for you for pirating.

throw0101c 4y ago

> Who would have thought that "international standards" that require payment don't work well? Who says that they don't work well? All of the manufactured goods that you own, and how they got transported (e.g., shipping containers, boats, fuel for boats, etc) are probably based a dozens of ISO (and ANSI, SAE, etc) standards that had to be paid for. It's been the norm for about a century and helped build the modern world. See Engineering rules: global standard setting since 1880 by Yates and Murphy for a history. There are some good lectures by them online as well: * https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-0 https://www.hagley.org/research/history-hangout-0

lxgr 4y ago
Sure, but the current model is just ridiculous. 290 or so CHF* is probably less than the procurement bureaucratic overhead in a large corporation that bases an entire line of business on a given standard, yet is prohibitive for hobbyists and many open-source projects. A more reasonable model these days would probably be a per-seat license for an entire segment of the ISO library. As it is, I don’t even know if a given standard would actually be useful to have for my work, companies need to decide which employee(s) to license a copy for etc… * I’m surprised it’s not billed in special drawing rights.
- 4pkjai 4y ago
  I run a business that extracts data from PDFs, even I couldn’t justify paying 290 CHF to buy a copy of the standard
  - gorkish 4y ago
    I found an error/omission in the PDF spec 20 years ago and it's still there despite my efforts to characterize and report it to the grand overlords of PDF. (There is no security implication, hence I am nobody.) When Apple eventually changed their implementation to be consistent with Adobe's, I gave up all further attempts as a waste of time. My errata document is available under a $5000/yr corporate subscription agreement to my personal standards and practices library. Sorry, I do not offer memberships to individuals.