There's certainly other models. Not sure if they are better or worse. There's the W3C model. I don't even know what that is honestly as although they help propo

There's certainly other models. Not sure if they are better or worse. There's the W3C model. I don't even know what that is honestly as although they help propose standards much of what they do is document what browser vendors have implemented after the fact and then try to get the browser vendors to agree. I don't know what their funding model is http://www.w3.org/Consortium/fees http://www.w3.org/Consortium/fees Their specs are public though The Khronos Group (OpenGL, OpenCL, etc) is a pay to participate organization but they make their specs public. My point is only that even if ANSI, which others have brought up, needs money their model of charging for the specs isn't the only way to do it. As for the original article it certainly does seem outrageous that there are laws that require you to follow some standard and you have to pay to access that standard.