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?
Original_To:  PROFS%"SMTP@PWAGPDB"
Original_cc:  CONDIC



David Arno <davea@LINKMSD.COM> writes:
>
>Interesting point, but don't forget that standards should idealy be
>international not just american (usa) standards. It's rather unfair for the
>rest of us to expect you Americans to pay for these standards to be free to
>us all due to you paying for them through your taxes. Though by doing so,
>Congress (or whoever) do encourage them to become international standards,
>since they are free to the whole world. (a case in point, the computing world
>would be in a complete mess if all non american computer companies had
>to pay to use the ASCII character set).
>
    You make a valid case, sir. However, let me point out that just
    about any military standard is *already* available at basically
    the printing and shipping cost (plus some subsidy from Congress,
    no doubt) from the Government Printing Office or Navy Pubs or a
    number of other locations. So basically, anyone in any country can
    benefit from the standards produced by the government without
    having to pay the taxes to support the development. (Although why
    someone would want to voluntarily use *some* of these Mil
    Standards, I don't know!)

    I'd chalk this up to the "Oh Well" category and not worry too much
    about my tax dollars supporting someone's software development in
    Outer Mongolia, just because they could download the standard from
    the internet for free. It *still* saves me money (and time!) when
    us defense contractor types can glom onto a standard as we need
    it. Ultimately, the taxpayers will spend less.

    Pax Vobiscum,
    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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