ZBEN@umd2.ARPA (07/11/86)
>> X.400 will never appear electronically, not because someone >> won't type it in, but because the documents are copyright... > ...I believe the attitude of copyrighting and then restricting distribution > is contradictory to standardization that is intended to [be] universal. > If you want everyone to use it, give it to them. > Is there anyone who agrees with me that standards that are expected to > be universally adopted should have unrestricted distribution? Regardless of the philosophical and/or moral implications raised, I am sure that a large part of the popularity of SMTP (and in fact of the entire ARPA suite) can be credited (blamed? :-) on the fact that not only are the various RFC documents freely distributable but that the NIC maintains copies of them for anonymous FTP at any time! If copyrighting and charging for ISO documents is an attempt at cost-recovery, I believe it WOEFULLY shortsighted. Here are a few reasons why: Joel M. Snyder <jms@arizmis> (in fact the original poster) writes: > When you get a copy from CCITT in the proper color binding for that study > period, you are assured that you have the exact same recommendations as > everybody else. A. Let's consider my mother's microwave oven and VCR (yes, this will eventually become relevant!). Both have clocks. Dumb human beings sometimes tend to push buttons that they really didn't mean to. Part of good human engineering is to design things so the dumb human beings have to push a LOT of wrong buttons before they can really mess things up. The VCR is a Sony Beta. It uses a philosophy: make it hard to change the time. So when one day we lost power for 15 minutes, it took me an hour to figure out how to reset the time (manual? where is the manual to YOUR VCR right now?) on the stupid thing - gotta push three buttons with each hand and the other one with your nose for crying out loud. This corresponds to limited distribution color coded scheme. The microwave is a Sears bottom-of-the-line. It takes the diametrically opposite philosophy: "Make it so easy to FIX that messing it up ain't no great disaster!" You push "Time Set" then what time it is. No muss no fuss. So, if you find that two copies of RFC822 don't agree, sign on and FTP a new one from the NIC! You have no worry about being OUT of date because the marginal cost to get back UP to date is so small. B. When I argue with someone about putting up a mail implementation on a machine that hitherto had none, he's going to give me a little static. It's VERY impressive to show him how easy it is to fetch and print a copy of the documentation he will need to implement the protocol suite. It removes one argument: "I don't know/can't find the documentation". Can't read comes later. I dunno - working here at Enourmous State, a branch of the state government of the Kingdom of Merryland, one gets a somewhat jaundiced viewpoint. Every time I deal with a (lowest bidder) red pen that right out of the box will not write, or (lowest bidder) computer paper that will tear anywhere BUT the perforations, I think of the brass hat who looks good by saving 10 dollars on a million dollar purchase. I really wouldn't mind except that his glory comes at my expense. What we say here is: The University will do ANYTHING to save money, no matter WHAT it costs. ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ perceived actual I think that to jeopardize the acceptance of a standard by restricting its availability, all in the name of mindless bean-counter cost recovery, is being penny-wise and pound-foolish. Pounds? Oh, that was before the metric standard money... > I don't mean to sound condescending, > but CCITT recommendations are really not aimed at people like you; > they are written by countries for countries. > The member bodies of the CCITT don't care for public domain implementations. I won't sound condescending either, but the Apple computer didn't come from any DEC research lab or any member of CCITT or any country per se. It came from three guys working out of a garage. The Europeans might not understand this, perhaps because there some vestige of nobless oblige would cause any worthy Woz types to become adopted by an established engineering firm. If CCITT recommendations are really written by countries for countries then let the fool countries write the code (sounds fair). And if the member bodies of CCITT want to keep me barefoot and pregnant then there is no law that says I have to go along with it... (Neither barefoot nor pregnant, and aiming to keep it that way...) umd5.UUCP {seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben Ben Cranston zben @ umd2.UMD.EDU <= Kingdom of Merryland Sperrows 1100/92 umd2.BITNET "via HASP with RSCS"