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I believe that some folks want to do away with ISO altogether.
It lets them do whatever they like with whomever they like
and then push that out on to a public that can't tell the
difference via labeling it a standard through an organization
that could care less. Let the buyer beware. That is fine
until the middle tier vendor has to sign an indemnity agreement
for that technology while the first vendor merely has
to claim, it's 'standard'.
I am not saying and have not said, "ISO only"
but that consortia working with ISO stand a better
chance of producing a reliable standard. ISO is only
guaranteeing a process. It is the consortia practices,
particularly the IP agreements as bound by the participation
agreements that one relies on.
As I asked Dare, would you agree that if the following
is asked, a better deal results:
1. It is ISO standard (which has a specific meaning)
but created by technical committees from consortia
(not the marketing guys who go to committee meetings
to represent their bosses' viewpoint).
2. Is Royalty-free by dint of a signed participation
agreement.
3. Comes with conformance tests and a test mark (a
formal variation of a trade mark).
So now, 'standard' has a meaning. The quality of the
standard is as good as the consortium members that
produce it, but the meaning is clear, the IP is
open, and conformance tests ensure that something
claimed to be 'standard' actually is.
As long as people continue to dis solutions that
might work, we might as well go back to the proprietary
solutions and push for indemnity clauses. If this
can't be done through the standards groups, there
are very few other alternatives.
len
From: Rich Salz [mailto:rsalz@datapower.com]
Most of these weren't ISO/ITU committees, but were either private
industry consortia, or other standards work that got a "finishing
polish." In fact, the only one I know of that was ISO from start
to finish is X.400, which surely must be considered a temporary
success at best, if not an overall failure and waste of time.
I believe when most folks say "what has ISO done," they want examples that
started in ISO (or ITU, most folks comingle them), rather than another
phase on an existing work. If all you need is the latter, than just have
ISO versions of IP, TCP, HTTP/1.1, and SSL.
So, can anyone point to ISO/ITU success in the computer (software) field?
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