dave@TACKY.CS.OLEMISS.EDU (David E. Johnson) (11/13/89)
From the information recieved thus far, it seems that to obtain the specifications for the OSI protocols requires a substantial outlay of money. Other larger universities may be able to afford to do such, but as I suspect, most do not have the resources to apprehend them. As Gunner Lindberg stated in a previous message, it seems that large corporate entities are able to afford the set of protocols. As we have seen with the DOD TCP/IP protocols, the driving force behind their use and availability has been the presence of public implementations and complete availability of the protocol specs. I understand that the fee charged for the documents is to cover printing and distribution costs, but it seems to me that an electronic version supplied on disk or tape would cost almost nothing and provide availability to those who cannot afford the current selling price of the printed versions. Or as another possible solution, the basic protocols for each layer could be made available at a smaller fee than more in depth specifications at least promoting common knowledge. It seems to me that with the vast array of ISO documents available for diverse areas of standards, a reduction in cost would actually increase profit by increasing purchase volume. David E. Johnson ** Title: Systems Programmer Department of Computer Science ** Telephone: (601) 232-7396 The University of Mississippi ** Internet: dave@cs.olemiss.edu 336 Weir Hall ** University, MS 38677 **
mrose@CHEETAH.NYSER.NET (Marshall Rose) (11/13/89)
Long, but informative-- Well, I'm the last person to defend OSI (some say the first person), but there are rational reasons as to why the ISO documents are distributed the way they are. It is important to appreciate that anyone can get a copy of any ISO standard. It's true that the documents are costly, but this is strictly a cost recovery mechanism. ISO breaks even on the deal. In comparison to the popular press or even university texts, there isn't really that much demand for standards, so not many copies get printed and the cost per unit is high. Keep in mind these things are typeset by gnomes in CH, they aren't ASCII-set by the actual authors. Typesetting is enormously personnel and time expensive. This costs big bucks, or CH francs. If you want to deal directly with the ISO you can, though typically it is preferable to go to your national standards body (e.g., ANSI in the US) for copies. As you might expect, you will pay a little more because there is personnel and handling involved. There are even some companies licensed to sell copies of standards. The one I recommend is "The Document Center" in Belmont, California at 415-591-7600. They (and companies like them) will do all the leg work to find copies of things for you at whatever prices are there. So why copyright the things and why not make them available on-line? The copyright is there because it is legally necessary to make sure that people don't change the documents. They aren't available on-line, primarily due to historical reasons. There really isn't a uniform format or anything else: it's all up to the editor of each individual document, some still use typewriters, some use MACs, some use PCs, some use LaTeX, etc. The more forward-thinking editors usually make an on-line copy of interim and final documents available to their buddies. However, these aren't official in any sense. Only things published by the ISO are official. The big-vendor conspiracy is a crock. What you have with ISO standards is the real world. Although it might surprise some, freebies and subsidies are the exception in the business world, not the rule. It costs time, people, and money to attend standards meetings. It costs money to buy copies of standards. And so on. This is called "the cost of doing business" or more colloquially, "the cost of admission". At previous companies I've been at, I've had the library order standards for me. They have a budget for things like this. Unless you're a small shop, it's almost certainly the case that someone has money for something like this. If not, then the organization in question should re-evaluate priorities accordingly. If you're a small shop, you can sponge off someone else. I know half-a-dozen of consultants who do this. /mtr ps: before someone goes calling me some kind of greedy, big-business shill, it should be pointed out that for the last four years I have orchestrated the largest collection of openly available OSI software since time's dawn (now how's that for self-aggrandizement!). I don't have any sympathy for the ISO, the standarization process, standards documents, or standards committees. They are all flawed, but they are reasonable processes for the imperfect world. We don't live in a perfect world, and my goal is simply to damage control the pain.
LYNCH@A.ISI.EDU (Dan Lynch) (11/13/89)
I believe that the previous messages about the high cost of ISO documents are innacurate as to the reason for the high cost. ISO is a large organization that does the administrative work of organizing meetings and dealing with appeals processes, etc. It has no dues to support that activity. It raises a large part of its overhead expenses by charging more than printing and distribution costs for its ONLY product, documents. Wehn you look at it in that light, things make "sense". The RFC series has been mainly paid for by the US Government in its many contracts to protocol developers and to network information centers. Thus it appears "free" to us. Nothing is free, as we all know. I doo agree that it would be better for the spread of ISO's OSI protocols if the documents were freely available. Dan -------