Re: Standards - on the net or for sale?

[CONDIC@PSAVAX.PWFL.COM]

From: Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93
Subject: Re: Standards - on the net or for sale?
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Original_cc:  CONDIC



Michael Feldman <mfeldman@SEAS.GWU.EDU> Writes:
>Both these writers have been very active in standards work; I know Roy
>has been a player in the ACM standards committee. The important point
>they make in their article is that inaccessibility and high price of
>standards inhibits their active use, and this flies in the face of
>all the zillions of hours of (mostly) volunteer work that goes into
>making a good standard, in the hope that the standard will be used.
>
    I'd have to most vehemently agree with this view. Certainly,
    private organizations (IEEE, et alia) are perfectly free to charge
    whatever they want for their standards, but it contributes to
    cutting their own throats. If they're free and easy to get,
    they'll get used and hence become _REAL_ standards, not just
    "paper" standards.

    What does tend to gall me is when the _GOVERNMENT_ doesn't make
    this stuff available on the Internet for free and easy access by
    all of us who must use the standards they define. After all, we've
    already paid for this stuff in the form of taxes, most of these
    things would almost certainly be in machine readable form already
    and it would save the government money by having industry pay to
    murder all those trees to print out the standards as they need
    them.

    Should we start lobbying Congress? I hear lots of Congressmen now
    have Internet addresses...

    (BTW: If the opposite of "pro" is "con" - what is the opposite of
    "progress"? :-))

    Pax,
    Marin

Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        407.796.8997
M/S 731-93                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
P.O. Box 109600                                 Internet:   MDCONDIC@AOL.COM
West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600
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