Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#31

Post by theincredulousk » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

kierank wrote: post #19

jjoonathan wrote: post #4

Many 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.

I don't think $100 can really be considered a major roadblock to any technology professional capable of doing a standardized implementation...

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#32

Post by mrozel » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

kierank wrote: post #19

jjoonathan wrote: post #4

Many 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.

This has always been my opinion. Plus, I've found them ripe with anti-patterns that contradict what they actual iso standards stand for.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#33

Post by theincredulousk » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

TBH I think IEEE is worse than ISO. After a fairly hefty yearly membership fee, they want you to pay for individual specs that other IEEE members created???

I needed to look at a 15+ year old IEEE spec, and thought "hey I'm a member, certainly I have access to it!". Nope. They wanted like $50 from a member. For a 15+ year old spec.

I let my membership lapse after that. Just couldn't figure out a way that it was worth $250+ year.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#34

Post by yusyusyus » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

theincredulousk wrote: post #31

kierank wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think $100 can really be considered a major roadblock to any technology professional capable of doing a standardized implementation...

having a copy of a single ISO standard is virtually never gonna work. too many references.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#35

Post by dwheeler » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

theincredulousk wrote: post #31

kierank wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think $100 can really be considered a major roadblock to any technology professional capable of doing a standardized implementation...

In a world where there were only a few hundred standards, sure.

But today's complex computer systems depend on hundreds of thousands of interfaces, and those interfaces are depended on by millions of organizations. Their business model inhibits standardization, instead of aiding it.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#36

Post by buckminster » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

s1mon wrote: post #15

I'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…

All the ITU ASN.1 specs are free. Maybe other ITU specs, I haven't looked.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#37

Post by strongbond » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

Because it costs money to sustain the armies of talentless paper-pushers who work for these organisations.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#38

Post by rightbyte » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

yusyusyus wrote: post #34

theincredulousk wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think $100 can really be considered a major roadblock to any technology professional capable of doing a standardized implementation...

having a copy of a single ISO standard is virtually never gonna work. too many references.

Also it's way to much trouble to make the purchase departement buy them. If the standard is not on some local file server due to someone dowloading it from some russian site, it doesn't exist and I just reverse engineer the needed part of the standard from some application using it and guess alot.

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#39

Post by rootsudo » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #20

andrewaylett wrote: post #9

I'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.

More info? I tried to google and I can't find any good links - was it that only people that could afford printed copies had access to the Law?

Re: Ask HN: Why are ISO standards so expensive?

#40

Post by gizmo686 » Thu, Jun 13, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

andrewaylett wrote: post #9

I'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…

I agree that the legislative concern is more serious, but think you are underestimating the harm of ad-hoc use.

When I want to reference an official specification, it is gennerally not a need. I can normally satisfy my own usecase by hacking together enough knowledge from reverse engineering and public sources (often with less effort then actually reading the spec requires), but I view it as my responsabilty to be spec compliant wherever possible.

A spec is only as good as it is followed. By not making the spec free, it is less valuable to me even if I pay for it, because there are now even more noncompliant systems out there I might need to interlop with.