Newsgroups: comp.std.internat
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: copyright
Message-ID: <1990Feb13.201834.21550@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3109@paperboy.OSF.ORG> <1091@tuminfo1.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <1938@pbhyg.PacBell.COM> <1990Feb9.192505.26290@utzoo.uucp> <15930@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 90 20:18:34 GMT

In article <15930@haddock.ima.isc.com> jimm@ima.ima.isc.com (Jim McGrath) writes:
>>In practice, ISO seems to be exactly like all the other standards outfits:
>>the revenue from sales of high-priced documents is significant and they're
>>not prepared to give it up.  ISO does not have magic sources of funding...
>This seems to be rather circular reasoning. i.e. ISO exists to produce
>expensive documents to pay for its existence...

No more so than saying that DEC exists to build computers which pay for 
its existence.  There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.  If standards
are to exist, somebody has to develop them, and the development will cost
money, which has to be paid by *someone*.  Someone specific and easily
identifiable, who is willing to pay for it -- just "the marketplace"
won't do, unless you explain exactly who you are talking about and
exactly how they will be asked to pay and exactly why they will do so.
The standards bodies find that people are willing to pay for copies of
standards, and that this is a good way to recover overhead costs.  What
exactly are you suggesting as an alternative?

>I'm trying to say here is that the people who want ISO implementations
>(end users) should pay for the standards developments, not the
>potential implementers...

Most of the cost of developing standards is people time, which is paid
for by interested implementors and big users.  Most of them proceed to
pass these costs on to *their* customers, and it eventually reaches the
end users.  An implementor who buys a copy of a standard will presumably
pass the cost of that on to his end users as soon as he can.  How is
this, the current situation, different from what you are proposing?
-- 
"The N in NFS stands for Not, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
or Need, or perhaps Nightmare"| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu