kre@munnari.UUCP (06/20/87)
In article <1744@ames.UUCP>, lamaster@pioneer.arpa (Hugh LaMaster) writes: > ISO is the International Standards Organization. No its not. ISO is the "International Organization for Standardisation" its also "Organisation Internationale de Normalisation". Its also something else in a language I don't recognise (probably Russian) and which is in a script I can't copy (ascii doesn't have the characters). (Exposing my ignorance of culture here.) Understanding this fine point is *crucial* to understanding ISO, and the way the OSI protocols have been developed. OSI *cannot* be the International Standards Oriagnzation, because that would make it an acronym in English, but not in French, Russian, German, Japanese, ... International politics simply won't allow this kind of bias, all things must be equal, and fair to everyone, and seen to be. kre ps: also remember that ISO standardizes more than computer protocols. There are ISO standards for more things that you can imagine - how do you think they got to numbers like 9542 (the network routing protocol)? All of these standards have been adopted under the same kinds of constraints.