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This really pisses me off. European harmonised standards are effectively legislation. You can't sell a product in the EU without complying with them. Yet they'r

This really pisses me off. European harmonised standards are effectively legislation. You can't sell a product in the EU without complying with them. Yet they're behind a really expensive pay-wall. If you buy the standard from ISO it's often €150 - and often that's just to find out if you even have to comply. Even working out which standards you should comply with is a nightmare - often they reference each other, so then you have a cascading web of standards compliance which never seems to end. And viewing each standard, even if it's just to see if it matters, costs €150. The standards are often written by businesses in the industry - the authors are on their payroll. ISO isn't even paying these people. Standards should be free and open, or have no legal weight.

raverbashing 3y ago
> Standards should be free and open, or have no legal weight. Yes. And this discussion is much older than it seems. Way older
- davedx 3y ago
  Merchant guilds? :)
gumballindie 3y ago
Congratulations! You’ve discovered protectionism and one of its many forms. The worst part is that this type of legislation is preventing east and south european development as well as preventing us companies from entering the eu market. Essentially by forcing endless amounts of standards that cant be met by developing member states due high entry barriers or non member states due to differences in standards the german and french markets are protected. Oddly enough subpar chinese products are OK. Hint: Germany needs access to china’s markets.
- davedx 3y ago
  I mean I’m quite cynical about everything these days but this strikes me as over cynical. The EU charging standard forcing Apple to standardize their chargers helps consumers and hardly hurts Apple. I am fairly sure there are tons of standards that have a net benefit on the lives and economies of EU member states. Do you have some examples of this N Europe protectionism?
  - scarface74 3y ago
    Would it have helped consumers when the EU was trying to force the micro USB standard which was worse than Lightning in every way? What happens when a company wants to come up with a better charging method then USB C?
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > What happens when a company wants to come up with a better charging method then USB C? Bottom line: it won’t happen in Europe.
      - scarface74 3y ago
        Neither will any AI innovations if another proposed regulation comes into affect. AI based companies just won’t do business in the EU.
        JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > AI based companies just won’t do business in the EU They probably will. It’s a huge and lucrative economic bloc. But they won’t be started there, or if they are, will be stunted by the fixed costs of compliance. For all the problems with our political process, America is good about exempting start-ups and small businesses from certain regulation.
        davedx 3y ago
        OpenAI: "Hold my coat" takes seat in meeting room with Congress to help them draft some handy new laws
    - josefx 3y ago
      > which was worse than Lightning in every way? You mean the proprietary connector that Apple would rather have die than turn into a free standard? Which it had over a decade to accomplish between the EU announcing its intention to enforce a standard and actually writing the law. > What happens when a company wants to come up with a better charging method then USB C? There is a renewal period of five years for the connection standard of choice. Why does this question get repeated every time USB comes up?
- pjc50 3y ago
  > subpar chinese products are OK Subpar Chinese products are not officially OK, they're just not really stopping individual packages from AliExpress. They generally aren't being resold through EU retailers. For me, the lack of any de-minimis rules in the requirements is the killer. EU law does not recognize the concept of a "small business". It might be both viable and a good idea for extra safety checks for something where a million units are being sold, but it isn't for a few dozen.
  - megous 3y ago
    A lot of such products are resold on local "auction" sites. Not sure if that's a loophole or not.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      Yeah, it's technically illegal to import and sell new non-CE marked goods into the EU on ebay, but it's basically impossible to enforce. You see a handful of prosecutions a year and only for genuinely dangerous products (flammable e-scooters, illegal vapes, etc)
  - nibbleshifter 3y ago
    Customs in the EU have massively cracked down on imports from China in the last couple of years, with new regulations regarding import charges etc. Every single package I've ordered since then across four different EU countries and multiple Chinese suppliers has resulted in it being held until a fee was paid. Previously, stuff below a certain value was "free".
    - red_trumpet 3y ago
      You have to pay an import tax. That has nothing to do with standards compliance of the products.
      - nibbleshifter 3y ago
        Given the packages are inspected, anecdotally "non compliant" or infringing products aren't making it to the buyer at a MUCH higher rate than before.
- wazoox 3y ago
  No, the EU is entirely sold to big corp. US big corps are doing fine, thank you, but small EU companies can go to hell. I'm developing software in a French 10 people shop, do you think we have any resources to spend on standards, and a legal department to check that we're properly conforming to them ? Of course not. That means that we can't hope to sell our products to any public service, government or EU agency, or any big company. These very big, very lucrative markets are strictly restricted to big corps. Microsoft, Google and Amazon are doing fine in this environment.
  - pas 3y ago
    can you elaborate on this with some examples? some standards are important, right? the phone charger standardization seems useful, no? it would be ideal to have just a single wall socket/plug, no? similarly for EV supercharger connector. and so on. these are the things that get standardized at the EU level, as far as I know, so I'm very interested in counter-examples. thanks!
    - CactusOnFire 3y ago
      I'm neither European nor do I have to deal with their standards, but this seems like a false equivocation. Physical Engineering standards serve a different purpose than software standards. Engineering standards are a social contract we all buy into because of the incredibly cost and complexity of designing physical infrastructure. Software is not constrained by the same standards. It's alright if the firmware of a coffee machine and a cell phone run on a different standard, but it's going to cause problems if each of my sockets has a different grounding.
      - paulddraper 3y ago
        I mean...there is an analogy there.
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      If standardizing something is a public good, then why are the standard documentation kept locked? Nobody on this thread said a word against standardization. It's really important. You are replying for some comment that isn't there.
brutusborn 3y ago
The same thing happens in Australia, and there is an exclusive licensing deal with a foreign company to sell them. I wouldn’t mind if they did research or something, but Australian volunteers write the standards, so the only costs to the publisher are web infrastructure.
- rmm 3y ago
  This only recently changed. Standards Australia had to sue though (or something) you can buy direct from them now. They also have subscriptions which are OK
rmm 3y ago
It’s the same bs everywhere. Here in Australia same deal. It’s even more dodgy. Saiglobal had something of a contract in perpetuity to sell standards that were created by standards Australia. Someone thought that was a good deal back when. They recently sued to get out of it and now can sell directly and have a pretty affordable subscription model. But even then it’s stupid. The standards themselves are developed by volunteer committees mostly, and standards Australia is sitting on a massive cash fund. We recently had to design some coupling plates for a job and needed to check allowable clearances that were specified in a standard. Problem is the bloody standard has 20 parts to it, each cost $150 each. I don’t even know which part I need! Anyway makes me angry thinking about. TLDR: standards should be free
passwordoops 3y ago
But then how would the ISO keep their doors open? Surely you're not implying that these poor organizations are profiteering, nay, rent-seeking in some way? (*Being sarcastic BTW. There's nothing more infuriating to me than the twin Industrial Complexes that have developed around Compliance and Publishing)
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Well they get the government subsides, the membership fees, and a huge lot of small task-oriented fees. AFAIK, each one of those is designed to be enough to cover for all their real expenses.
alwayslikethis 3y ago
Some state laws in the US I believe are copyrighted and costs money to obtain.
- colejohnson66 3y ago
  You're probably referencing the Georgia situation,[0] and it's complicated. The actual text of the laws are public, but there exists a (previously; see below) copyrighted annotated version published by a private company and "merged" into the "master" law. Courts would reference this annotated version, but because it was copyrighted, one could not republish it in its entirety, only in ways that followed fair use. On the surface, the concept of copyrighted laws sounds ridiculous. After all, works of the government are not copyrightable, so why should the law be? However, Georgia's idea was essentially: because it was done by a private company, the copyright was enforceable. In 2013, Public.Resource.Org challenged this concept by publishing the text in its entirety, and was subsequently sued by Georgia in 2015. The Northern District of Georgia ruled in favor of Georgia in 2017. After an appeal to the 11th Circuit, in 2018, it was overturned in favor of Public.Resource.Org. In 2020,[1] the Supreme Court sided with the 11th Circuit, ending the debacle. The ruling held that "works that lack the force of law, such as the annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated" are uncopyrightable. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Code_of_Georgia_Annotated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Code_of_Georgia_Annot... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org....
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    "Ignorance of the law is not an excuse" is already bad enough. "Ignorance of the stuff we wrote down near the law that we'll basically treat as the golden interpretation of the law and judge you on it" is a bridge too far.
  - lazyasciiart 3y ago
    Minor but important correction: it did not find that "works that lack the force of law" are uncopyrightable per se. It found that works created by or for legislators with "legislative authority" are uncopyrightable, even if they lack the force of law.
FridayoLeary 3y ago
Imagine if the original international standards of weights and measures charged for access to their master units and restricted data about their quantities. The lack of vision is remarkable, yet symptomatic of the EU.
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  >The lack of vision is remarkable, yet symptomatic of the EU. ...and the rest of the world, judging by the comments. And also, let's not forget the EU is a collection of countries.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > let's not forget the EU is a collection of countries Well, sort of. But why is that relevant?
  - FridayoLeary 3y ago
    What is outstanding about the EU is that it restricts the economic growth of it's member states. I've seen it argued that this is not merely the fault of poor governance., like the rest of the world, rather it's an inherent feature of the way the European Community was set up. Their lack of concern for Free Market principles is not just due to a contempt for small business but rather an inability to accommodate them. (the sole exception may be subsidising the French farming industry).
    - nibbleshifter 3y ago
      Its not just French farmers who are subsidised though - farmers all across the EU avail of various subsidies, grants, etc.
traceroute66 3y ago
> Yet they're behind a really expensive pay-wall. If you buy the standard from ISO it's often €150 Really, I'm surprised there's anyone left who doesn't know about EVS (the Estonian Centre for Standards and Accreditation)[1] They have a nice English website, and you don't have to have any ties whatsoever to Eestonia, or Europe. The customer service people speak perfect English too if you have any questions. Just make sure you're looking at the price for the EN version and not the ISO version. EN just means the regionally adopted version of the standard. For all intents and purposes EN and ISO are basically identical. [1] https://www.evs.ee/en/ https://www.evs.ee/en/
- AndyMcConachie 3y ago
  I just looked at this site and you have to pay if you want access. They're not free from this website either. I was looking at ISO-3166 and the different standards documents cost from ~$22 to ~$175.
  - traceroute66 3y ago
    > I just looked at this site and you have to pay if you want access. When did I say it was free ? I was replying to the OP who was complaining about paying 150. I pointed out that most people go to EVS these days where they can get it for a fraction of the cost. Frankly I'm sick and tired of the modern freetard mentality where people feel they are somehow entitled to the work of others free of charge. Whilst yes I agree the source 150 cost is high, the fractional cost available via EVS is not. And if your job is dependent on formal standards compliance, then its merely a cost of doing business no different to an internet connection and should be accounted for accordingly.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    I've looked for ISO 10218, 12100, 13849, and IEC 60204, and they're $29.76 to $36.23; $138 for the set. That's a lot better than $183, $207, $230, and $575 that the original publishers want, almost $1200 for the set. The former is likely in the discretionary shop tools budget for most clients, especially if you spread it out over four pay periods, but $1200 would trigger lots of restrictions. But you're right, it's still not free. These are documents that should be on the laptops of every shift lead, maintenance tech, mechanical designer, manufacturing engineer, robot programmer, and controls programmer at industrial plants worldwide. These documents being free would not just make websites easier to use, they'd make human beings safer and reduce the number of industrial accidents that occur. And yet in the hundreds of facilities I've been in and hundreds of customers and vendors I've worked with, I can count on one hand the number of people who had a copy of even one of these documents. The vast majority, in practice, makes do with the regurgitated Powerpoints from various "safety training" presentations that have screenshots of a few tables and critical language. There's an enormous river of prosperity flowing through society. Everyone involved just wants to dip out or siphon off a little bit, what they imagine to be their fair share, or what they think they can convince people ought to be their fair share, and unfortunately, that includes people like the standards bodies. If they published their standards more freely, the total volume of that river would grow enormously, but they would get less of it, so they selfishly don't do that.
delfinom 3y ago
In the US, it's been ruled many times that if the government mandates a standard, then it must be publicly available for free to be enforceable. Which is why, when the NFPA (private org) fire code is mandated, you can use a really shitty web based viewer to view it for free, or pay the normal $200 for a hard copy or pdf. All stemming from a lawsuit. It's interesting the EU isn't the same
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  This is substantially less true in practice than you'd think. I'm in automotive, so let's take ISO-26262, one of the main standards used to design your vehicle. The contents of that are encoded in the NHTSA validation tests, basic compliance procedures, and all the certification paperwork, but the standard itself is "voluntary" and hence non-free. It's a massive standard with a dozen different parts that have to be purchased separately for a couple hundred each. Since group licensing also tends to charge by # of people with access, beancounters naturally silo access to this critical safety standard, with many of the thousands of engineers who work on any particular vehicle designing to a standard they've never read for themselves. Standards should simply be freely available. It takes time and effort to write them, but the consequences of limited access are borne by society.
euroderf 3y ago
sci-hub ?
slim 3y ago
each time I had to look up an iso standard, I found it on libgen. Thank you pirates!

raverbashing 3y ago

> Standards should be free and open, or have no legal weight. Yes. And this discussion is much older than it seems. Way older

davedx 3y ago
Merchant guilds? :)

gumballindie 3y ago

Congratulations! You’ve discovered protectionism and one of its many forms. The worst part is that this type of legislation is preventing east and south european development as well as preventing us companies from entering the eu market. Essentially by forcing endless amounts of standards that cant be met by developing member states due high entry barriers or non member states due to differences in standards the german and french markets are protected. Oddly enough subpar chinese products are OK. Hint: Germany needs access to china’s markets.

davedx 3y ago
I mean I’m quite cynical about everything these days but this strikes me as over cynical. The EU charging standard forcing Apple to standardize their chargers helps consumers and hardly hurts Apple. I am fairly sure there are tons of standards that have a net benefit on the lives and economies of EU member states. Do you have some examples of this N Europe protectionism?
- scarface74 3y ago
  Would it have helped consumers when the EU was trying to force the micro USB standard which was worse than Lightning in every way? What happens when a company wants to come up with a better charging method then USB C?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > What happens when a company wants to come up with a better charging method then USB C? Bottom line: it won’t happen in Europe.
    - scarface74 3y ago
      Neither will any AI innovations if another proposed regulation comes into affect. AI based companies just won’t do business in the EU.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > AI based companies just won’t do business in the EU They probably will. It’s a huge and lucrative economic bloc. But they won’t be started there, or if they are, will be stunted by the fixed costs of compliance. For all the problems with our political process, America is good about exempting start-ups and small businesses from certain regulation.
        davedx 3y ago
        OpenAI: "Hold my coat" takes seat in meeting room with Congress to help them draft some handy new laws
  - josefx 3y ago
    > which was worse than Lightning in every way? You mean the proprietary connector that Apple would rather have die than turn into a free standard? Which it had over a decade to accomplish between the EU announcing its intention to enforce a standard and actually writing the law. > What happens when a company wants to come up with a better charging method then USB C? There is a renewal period of five years for the connection standard of choice. Why does this question get repeated every time USB comes up?
pjc50 3y ago
> subpar chinese products are OK Subpar Chinese products are not officially OK, they're just not really stopping individual packages from AliExpress. They generally aren't being resold through EU retailers. For me, the lack of any de-minimis rules in the requirements is the killer. EU law does not recognize the concept of a "small business". It might be both viable and a good idea for extra safety checks for something where a million units are being sold, but it isn't for a few dozen.
- megous 3y ago
  A lot of such products are resold on local "auction" sites. Not sure if that's a loophole or not.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    Yeah, it's technically illegal to import and sell new non-CE marked goods into the EU on ebay, but it's basically impossible to enforce. You see a handful of prosecutions a year and only for genuinely dangerous products (flammable e-scooters, illegal vapes, etc)
- nibbleshifter 3y ago
  Customs in the EU have massively cracked down on imports from China in the last couple of years, with new regulations regarding import charges etc. Every single package I've ordered since then across four different EU countries and multiple Chinese suppliers has resulted in it being held until a fee was paid. Previously, stuff below a certain value was "free".
  - red_trumpet 3y ago
    You have to pay an import tax. That has nothing to do with standards compliance of the products.
    - nibbleshifter 3y ago
      Given the packages are inspected, anecdotally "non compliant" or infringing products aren't making it to the buyer at a MUCH higher rate than before.
wazoox 3y ago
No, the EU is entirely sold to big corp. US big corps are doing fine, thank you, but small EU companies can go to hell. I'm developing software in a French 10 people shop, do you think we have any resources to spend on standards, and a legal department to check that we're properly conforming to them ? Of course not. That means that we can't hope to sell our products to any public service, government or EU agency, or any big company. These very big, very lucrative markets are strictly restricted to big corps. Microsoft, Google and Amazon are doing fine in this environment.
- pas 3y ago
  can you elaborate on this with some examples? some standards are important, right? the phone charger standardization seems useful, no? it would be ideal to have just a single wall socket/plug, no? similarly for EV supercharger connector. and so on. these are the things that get standardized at the EU level, as far as I know, so I'm very interested in counter-examples. thanks!
  - CactusOnFire 3y ago
    I'm neither European nor do I have to deal with their standards, but this seems like a false equivocation. Physical Engineering standards serve a different purpose than software standards. Engineering standards are a social contract we all buy into because of the incredibly cost and complexity of designing physical infrastructure. Software is not constrained by the same standards. It's alright if the firmware of a coffee machine and a cell phone run on a different standard, but it's going to cause problems if each of my sockets has a different grounding.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      I mean...there is an analogy there.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    If standardizing something is a public good, then why are the standard documentation kept locked? Nobody on this thread said a word against standardization. It's really important. You are replying for some comment that isn't there.

brutusborn 3y ago

The same thing happens in Australia, and there is an exclusive licensing deal with a foreign company to sell them. I wouldn’t mind if they did research or something, but Australian volunteers write the standards, so the only costs to the publisher are web infrastructure.

rmm 3y ago
This only recently changed. Standards Australia had to sue though (or something) you can buy direct from them now. They also have subscriptions which are OK

rmm 3y ago

It’s the same bs everywhere. Here in Australia same deal. It’s even more dodgy. Saiglobal had something of a contract in perpetuity to sell standards that were created by standards Australia. Someone thought that was a good deal back when. They recently sued to get out of it and now can sell directly and have a pretty affordable subscription model. But even then it’s stupid. The standards themselves are developed by volunteer committees mostly, and standards Australia is sitting on a massive cash fund. We recently had to design some coupling plates for a job and needed to check allowable clearances that were specified in a standard. Problem is the bloody standard has 20 parts to it, each cost $150 each. I don’t even know which part I need! Anyway makes me angry thinking about. TLDR: standards should be free

passwordoops 3y ago

But then how would the ISO keep their doors open? Surely you're not implying that these poor organizations are profiteering, nay, rent-seeking in some way? (*Being sarcastic BTW. There's nothing more infuriating to me than the twin Industrial Complexes that have developed around Compliance and Publishing)

marcosdumay 3y ago
Well they get the government subsides, the membership fees, and a huge lot of small task-oriented fees. AFAIK, each one of those is designed to be enough to cover for all their real expenses.

alwayslikethis 3y ago

Some state laws in the US I believe are copyrighted and costs money to obtain.

colejohnson66 3y ago
You're probably referencing the Georgia situation,[0] and it's complicated. The actual text of the laws are public, but there exists a (previously; see below) copyrighted annotated version published by a private company and "merged" into the "master" law. Courts would reference this annotated version, but because it was copyrighted, one could not republish it in its entirety, only in ways that followed fair use. On the surface, the concept of copyrighted laws sounds ridiculous. After all, works of the government are not copyrightable, so why should the law be? However, Georgia's idea was essentially: because it was done by a private company, the copyright was enforceable. In 2013, Public.Resource.Org challenged this concept by publishing the text in its entirety, and was subsequently sued by Georgia in 2015. The Northern District of Georgia ruled in favor of Georgia in 2017. After an appeal to the 11th Circuit, in 2018, it was overturned in favor of Public.Resource.Org. In 2020,[1] the Supreme Court sided with the 11th Circuit, ending the debacle. The ruling held that "works that lack the force of law, such as the annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated" are uncopyrightable. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Code_of_Georgia_Annotated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Code_of_Georgia_Annot... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org....
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  "Ignorance of the law is not an excuse" is already bad enough. "Ignorance of the stuff we wrote down near the law that we'll basically treat as the golden interpretation of the law and judge you on it" is a bridge too far.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Minor but important correction: it did not find that "works that lack the force of law" are uncopyrightable per se. It found that works created by or for legislators with "legislative authority" are uncopyrightable, even if they lack the force of law.

FridayoLeary 3y ago

Imagine if the original international standards of weights and measures charged for access to their master units and restricted data about their quantities. The lack of vision is remarkable, yet symptomatic of the EU.

InCityDreams 3y ago
>The lack of vision is remarkable, yet symptomatic of the EU. ...and the rest of the world, judging by the comments. And also, let's not forget the EU is a collection of countries.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > let's not forget the EU is a collection of countries Well, sort of. But why is that relevant?
- FridayoLeary 3y ago
  What is outstanding about the EU is that it restricts the economic growth of it's member states. I've seen it argued that this is not merely the fault of poor governance., like the rest of the world, rather it's an inherent feature of the way the European Community was set up. Their lack of concern for Free Market principles is not just due to a contempt for small business but rather an inability to accommodate them. (the sole exception may be subsidising the French farming industry).
  - nibbleshifter 3y ago
    Its not just French farmers who are subsidised though - farmers all across the EU avail of various subsidies, grants, etc.

traceroute66 3y ago

> Yet they're behind a really expensive pay-wall. If you buy the standard from ISO it's often €150 Really, I'm surprised there's anyone left who doesn't know about EVS (the Estonian Centre for Standards and Accreditation)[1] They have a nice English website, and you don't have to have any ties whatsoever to Eestonia, or Europe. The customer service people speak perfect English too if you have any questions. Just make sure you're looking at the price for the EN version and not the ISO version. EN just means the regionally adopted version of the standard. For all intents and purposes EN and ISO are basically identical. [1] https://www.evs.ee/en/ https://www.evs.ee/en/

AndyMcConachie 3y ago
I just looked at this site and you have to pay if you want access. They're not free from this website either. I was looking at ISO-3166 and the different standards documents cost from ~$22 to ~$175.
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > I just looked at this site and you have to pay if you want access. When did I say it was free ? I was replying to the OP who was complaining about paying 150. I pointed out that most people go to EVS these days where they can get it for a fraction of the cost. Frankly I'm sick and tired of the modern freetard mentality where people feel they are somehow entitled to the work of others free of charge. Whilst yes I agree the source 150 cost is high, the fractional cost available via EVS is not. And if your job is dependent on formal standards compliance, then its merely a cost of doing business no different to an internet connection and should be accounted for accordingly.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  I've looked for ISO 10218, 12100, 13849, and IEC 60204, and they're $29.76 to $36.23; $138 for the set. That's a lot better than $183, $207, $230, and $575 that the original publishers want, almost $1200 for the set. The former is likely in the discretionary shop tools budget for most clients, especially if you spread it out over four pay periods, but $1200 would trigger lots of restrictions. But you're right, it's still not free. These are documents that should be on the laptops of every shift lead, maintenance tech, mechanical designer, manufacturing engineer, robot programmer, and controls programmer at industrial plants worldwide. These documents being free would not just make websites easier to use, they'd make human beings safer and reduce the number of industrial accidents that occur. And yet in the hundreds of facilities I've been in and hundreds of customers and vendors I've worked with, I can count on one hand the number of people who had a copy of even one of these documents. The vast majority, in practice, makes do with the regurgitated Powerpoints from various "safety training" presentations that have screenshots of a few tables and critical language. There's an enormous river of prosperity flowing through society. Everyone involved just wants to dip out or siphon off a little bit, what they imagine to be their fair share, or what they think they can convince people ought to be their fair share, and unfortunately, that includes people like the standards bodies. If they published their standards more freely, the total volume of that river would grow enormously, but they would get less of it, so they selfishly don't do that.

delfinom 3y ago

In the US, it's been ruled many times that if the government mandates a standard, then it must be publicly available for free to be enforceable. Which is why, when the NFPA (private org) fire code is mandated, you can use a really shitty web based viewer to view it for free, or pay the normal $200 for a hard copy or pdf. All stemming from a lawsuit. It's interesting the EU isn't the same

AlotOfReading 3y ago
This is substantially less true in practice than you'd think. I'm in automotive, so let's take ISO-26262, one of the main standards used to design your vehicle. The contents of that are encoded in the NHTSA validation tests, basic compliance procedures, and all the certification paperwork, but the standard itself is "voluntary" and hence non-free. It's a massive standard with a dozen different parts that have to be purchased separately for a couple hundred each. Since group licensing also tends to charge by # of people with access, beancounters naturally silo access to this critical safety standard, with many of the thousands of engineers who work on any particular vehicle designing to a standard they've never read for themselves. Standards should simply be freely available. It takes time and effort to write them, but the consequences of limited access are borne by society.

euroderf 3y ago

sci-hub ?

slim 3y ago

each time I had to look up an iso standard, I found it on libgen. Thank you pirates!