ISO standards do already have an expiration date.
They have to be reviewed every 5 years (3 years for Technical
Reports) to decide whether to keep them (or revise them or
convert them to a different class). Otherwise they will be
withdrawn. After withdrawal, they can be reinstated again
after a full vote.
"Withdrawn" does not mean that they are nullified, as if they
never existed, so it is completely possible for some user to
adopt a withdrawn standard. It just means there is no
agreement (or interest) from the ISO members that the
publication's market is not now better served by having the
publication on ISO's books under active maintenance than not.
So a withdrawal does not necessarily reflect poorly on the
technology: a technology may have a steady community, but one
not available to participate in standardization efforts, for
example. Or times and markets may have changed, or better
technologies come along.
Cheers
Rick
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, 2012, 2.9.1
Every
International Standard and other deliverable published by ISO
or jointly with IEC shall be subject
to
systematic review in order to determine whether it should be
confirmed,
