Eh. The fact that you had to spend around $1,000 to buy the set of manuals required, back when that was perhaps $2,000 in today's dollars, was probably a bigge

Eh. The fact that you had to spend around $1,000 to buy the set of manuals required, back when that was perhaps $2,000 in today's dollars, was probably a bigger factor than the article makes it out to be. Standards organizations like ISO and ANSI, at least back then, made their money selling manuals, which just doesn't work for something so ubiquitous in the number of people who have to know details. Another problem that I read about at the time is that some of the ISO protocols didn't work. The "ISORMites" (http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Networking-Style-Animadversions-Intercomputer/dp/0595088791 http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Networking-Style-Animadversio...) were reported to be contemptuous of the Internet protocols, their origin from the "US Department of Death", etc. ... and didn't have a policy like the IETF's "running code wins" approach. More generally, per http://www.ietf.org/tao.html http://www.ietf.org/tao.html "One of the 'founding beliefs' is embodied in an early quote about the IETF from David Clark: 'We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code'"