Re: 2167A, 498, commercial and mil standards...

[sws@mercury.nswses.navy.mil (Scott . Smart CDR)]

In article <EACHUS.95Feb3175743@spectre.mitre.org:,
Robert I. Eachus <eachus@spectre.mitre.org: wrote:
:In article <INFO-ADA%95013010360570@VM1.NODAK.EDU: CONDIC@PSAVAX.PWFL.COM writes:
:
   :Grat Idea, Love it!
:  : Let's go one step further - what if the Government Printing
:  : Office or whatever technical publication offices handle this
:  : stuff were to put all the Mil-Std's etc. into ASCII and
:  : Postscript format and make them available at a single FTP site?
:
:  : It'd make *my* life considerably easier.
:
:   Tell that to Newt.
:
:   Seriously, both Newt Gingrich and Al Gore would probably be willing
:to get strongly behind any reasonable proposal in this area.  Getting
:Congress on line is a nice first step, but getting the Executive
:Orders and other administration side documents to really be publicly
:available would be a real revolution.
:
:--
:
:					Robert I. Eachus
:
:with Standard_Disclaimer;
:use  Standard_Disclaimer;
:function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...

Unfortunately, it seems that many of the attempts so far to do
this sort of thing have met with resistance from the cottage 
industry of firms that sell you this data via on-line data bases
or CD-ROMs.  (That's how we get our data -- you don't think we
pay GPO's rates do you?).  But if we can get over the hurdle of
"bankrupting small business", the next battle will be whether to
provide this data "free" (i.e., as agency overhead) or at "cost"
via a fee - reimbursable set up.

Scott Smart
 
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