Sometimes you can access standards from a library. Not sure how common that is for ISO but maybe look it up.
I asked at my local university library in Germany: they can't be accessed there.
Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
11–20 of 91 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#12there are torrents that have all the standards...
Where?
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#13Its also worth noting that you can basically find all of the standards in their draft forms for free. You need to be slightly careful about the revision numbers, but often the drafts are identical to the ISO ones. You really only need to pay for the draft if you want to be certified as in compliance or are an enterprise user. In which case the fee is paltry.
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#14there are torrents that have all the standards...
Where?
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:F046266BE1BFB1528A6C766526A8B17254059429&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.t-ru.org%2Fann%3Fmagnet&dn=ISO%20standards%20%2F%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82%D1%8B%20%D0%98%D0%A1%D0%9E%20(%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BA%D0%B0)%20%5B1973-2017.%20PDF%2C%20ENG%5D
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#15I've often thought that if standards organizations were truly interested in encouraging the use of their standards, they would make them freely available and recover their operation costs some other way. Even worse than the standards orgs themselves is IHS which acts as an electronic library (gatekeeper troll) for these orgs. In theory they are providing a service of managing electronic copies of expensive standards so that a big company doesn't get into licensing/copyright violations, but really all they're doing is adding overhead on top of stuff which should be free in the first place.
At one point the orgs were covering printing and shipping costs, but with electronic downloads and PDFs, it's really crazy to charge $$$ for a standard, especially when it doesn't include updates.
A couple exception to this madness: US government stuff (e.g. Mil-Std) which by law is all copyright free and downloadable, and USB.org is surprisingly and pleasantly just available for download.
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#16I know this question relates to the scandal of standards documents, but unlike the IETF it's possible to write ISO standards that are essentially proprietary by including various patent encumbrances, making them prohibitively expensive to implement. IEEE standards are particularly terrible in this regard.
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#17IEC standards are also expensive. However, there's a hack available. Denmark has incorporated many of the international IEC standards as national standards "by-value". They are also available at a much lower price than the IEC standards. So if you buy the ~100 USD DS-60950-1, you'll find a Danish cover page followed by the otherwise 900 CHF IEC/EN-60950-1 (the International/Eurozone IT equipment electrical safety sta…
ANSI used to have several interesting standards (C, C++) as PDF for 30 dollars each. Unfortunately, they upped their prices considerably.
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#18Nominally to cover the costs of production. However, this is a convenient barrier to entry for Open Source and amateur developers that many companies who are standards participants don't object to.
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#19Many other standards organizations have figured out funding models that don't shut out hobbyists, the interested public, academics, and professionals with tangential (rather than direct, funded) interest. ISO has not. They are behind the times in this regard.
ISO is full of vested interests that don't want hobbyists, the interested public, academics, and professionals to access the documents and be able to implement them at a lower cost.
Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?
#20I've been part of a team developing C++ compilers and run-time libraries. We used the final draft, which (at least for C++) is freely available. I suspect anyone relying on the final text (were it to differ from the last public draft) would be disappointed to discover that pretty much no-one uses it. It doesn't seem to me to be a terrible trade-off to say that ad-hoc use via public drafts is fine, but if you need to…
One is reminded of the legal fight over the public posting of Georgia's penal code.