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From: drd@siia.mv.com (David Dick)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: Standards Update, NIST Shell-and-Tools FIPS Workshop
Message-ID: <14013@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 24 Oct 90 21:46:11 GMT
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Submitted-by: drd@siia.mv.com (David Dick)

In <107019@uunet.UU.NET> hl.rogers@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM (HL Rogers) writes:

>Submitted-by: rogers@ofc.uucp

[discussion about NIST, FIPS, and IEEE standards pace omitted]

>What I fail to understand is IEEE's continuing propensity to violate the
>"prime directive", i.e., their failure to specify common practice.  

...

>Attempting to legislate change through IEEE dot n committees may even
>work, but guess what?  Instead of Uncle Sam buying something off the
>shelf for near commodity prices, he has to buy a "special" for inflated
>prices because it had to be especially developed.  Nobody had it, not 
>common practice,...  And guess what else?  You, I, Roger Martin, and
>the rest of us collectively make up "Uncle Sam."  It's your money, ace.

But isn't this exactly what has been happening for years in Federal
procurement?  Unfortunately, some of the same forces that encouraged
this in traditional procurement must still be in operation, e.g.,
the need of the procurement bureaucracy to ensure its continued existence.

David Dick
Software Innovations, Inc. [the Software Moving Company(sm)]

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 4