Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!usc!apple!voder!dtg.nsc.com!my
From: my@dtg.nsc.com (Michael Yip)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
Subject: Re: ISO Whining
Summary: DOc costs too much
Keywords: DOC, ANSI, cost
Message-ID: <645@dtg.nsc.com>
Date: 25 Jan 91 17:21:55 GMT
References: <9101230627.1.UUL1.3#5653@malamud.com> <21575.664711596@nma> <ENAG.91Jan25030129@hild.ifi.uio.no>
Reply-To: my@dtg.UUCP (Michael Yip)
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 44

In article (Erik Naggum) writes:
>In article (Einar Stefferud) writes:
>   I also must agree with whoever it was that pointed out the an extra
>   $200 to $1000 for Standards Documents is not really significant
>   compared to the cost of hiring two good programmers to implement
>   without the standards in hand!  Not smart economics there I fear.
>
>I object to this arrogant stance.  There are those among the
>readership of this list and of the ISO standards who wish to be able
>to follow the state of the art, to be able to know of what people
...
>   I recall the famous quote from Commodore Vanderbilt when asked by a
>   plebian what his yacht cost.  "If you have to ask, you can't afford
>   it!"
>
>I'm sorry to see that OSI has become a luxury, unlike the prospect
...

I totally agree with Mr. Erik Naggum.

I think that the Standards Documents should be available on line,
may be for a small fee of maintance, just like the RFC documents
for the Internet stuffs.  

$200 to $1000 is definitely not a significant cost for any company
but there are many many people who works on their own and also
many universities what are tight in budget.  For example, the code
like routed was first developed in UCB and being copied/referenced
by many companies.  That helps!  But if the cost of development is
so high that universities and individuals will not be able to 
develop public domain software, then I think that everyone and
every companies will suffer.

By the way, I would like to have ISO standards not just for some
big and elite companies but for everyone.  Every programmers,
engineers and every users.

I think that a very small transaction or maintanence fee is very
reasonable.  But with an electronic distribution, the cost will
be a little bit lower.

Just my 0.02 buck!

-- Mike