carl@malamud.com (Carl Malamud) (01/12/91)
The following message was posted on the IETF list. The response
was (with one exception) to get rid of all copyright. It occurred
to me that the sample might have been skewed. Any reaction from
these other lists?
=============ORIGINAL MESSAGE STARTS HERE==========================
As you are all probably aware, ISO, CCITT, and ANSI all retain the
copyright on their standards. The result is that they cost quite a
bit -- a recent purchase of FTAM specs, for example, cost me $200.
There are two reasons advanced by the standards bodies for this policy:
1) They need to fund the standards process with document sales.
2) Keeping copyright prevents unauthorized duplication and thus
preserves the authenticity of the standards.
This is in sharp contrast to TCP/IP where standards are publicly available.
Does anyone consider this to be an issue? Is the high cost of standards
impeding efforts to adopt those standards? Do you know less about OSI
because you can't readily (cheaply) obtain standards specifications?
Carl
carl@malamud.combapat@rm1.UUCP (Subodh Bapat) (01/20/91)
In <9101111905.1.UUL1.3#5653@malamud.com> carl@malamud.com (Carl Malamud) writes:
%As you are all probably aware, ISO, CCITT, and ANSI all retain the
%copyright on their standards. The result is that they cost quite a
%bit -- a recent purchase of FTAM specs, for example, cost me $200.
%There are two reasons advanced by the standards bodies for this policy:
% 1) They need to fund the standards process with document sales.
% 2) Keeping copyright prevents unauthorized duplication and thus
% preserves the authenticity of the standards.
%This is in sharp contrast to TCP/IP where standards are publicly available.
%Does anyone consider this to be an issue? Is the high cost of standards
%impeding efforts to adopt those standards? Do you know less about OSI
%because you can't readily (cheaply) obtain standards specifications?
%Carl
%carl@malamud.com
I think this is perhaps THE major impediment in the proliferation of OSI.
Most people's knowledge of TCP/IP is direct, acquired from reading the RFC's;
whereas most people's knowledge of OSI is derivative, acquired from second-hand
sources, articles, books, etc.
The other effect this has had is that it has engendered a class of middlemen -
people who make it their business to digest and explain the standards to
their clients, because clients find it too expensive to obtain OSI standards
for themselves. While these people - such as Omnicom and PSC - are doing an
excellent job overall, in the long run the OSI community would be better
served if standards were directly and freely available. Today, a
budget-conscious startup would rather implement a TCP/IP product than an
OSI product because the high cost of OSI specifications acts as a barrier
to market entry. (On second thoughts, this may be by design, if the big
boys in the OSI community don't want upstart startups carving up the low
end of the market).
--
Subodh Bapat bapat@rm1.uu.net OR ...uunet!rm1!bapat
MS E-204, PO Box 407044, Racal-Milgo, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33340 (305) 846-6068kremer@cs.utwente.nl (Harro Kremer) (01/21/91)
I've followed the discussion about the price of OSI standards. Since I'm involved in the standardization process within ISO, I know a little about the way standards are made. The fact that you have to pay for OSI standards is financial. The profits from selling standards are used to finance the ISO secretariats. NB: People doing technical work are not paid by ISO but by their employer. This way, thechnical work is not biased by the funding of ISO. Personal suggestion (without any claim) : Maybe you can donate some money to ISO so they can lower their price. They might accept it, provided you give it without any conditions. Harro +----------------------------------------------------------+ | Harro Kremer | | Dept. of Computer Science | | University of Twente | | P.O. Box 217 Email: kremer@cs.utwente.nl | | 7500 AE Enschede voice: +31 53 89 3755 | | Netherlands fax : +31 53 33 3815 | +----------------------------------------------------------+ <this signature no verb>
donp@na.excelan.com (don provan) (01/22/91)
In article <988@rm1.UUCP> bapat@rm1.UUCP (Subodh Bapat) writes: >In <9101111905.1.UUL1.3#5653@malamud.com> carl@malamud.com (Carl Malamud) writes: >%As you are all probably aware, ISO, CCITT, and ANSI all retain the >%copyright on their standards. The result is that they cost quite a >%bit -- a recent purchase of FTAM specs, for example, cost me $200. > >I think this is perhaps THE major impediment in the proliferation of OSI. >Most people's knowledge of TCP/IP is direct, acquired from reading the RFC's; >whereas most people's knowledge of OSI is derivative, acquired from second-hand >sources, articles, books, etc. I do not believe that the cost of the OSI specs is a significant factor here. The OSI specs are extremely technical. Having one in front of you does not automatically convey knowledge. I *do* have access to the OSI specs, but my knowledge of them is *still* derivative because i don't have the time to study them. In other words, there is a much larger cost involved in understanding the OSI specs than this measly $200, and i believe it's that additional cost that supports the indirect channels of information you currently see. (The OSI specs have good reasons for being so technical; the above paragraph is not intended as an attack on the their quality, just an observation of their nature.) don provan donp@novell.com