Carl Malamud’s Lawsuit-Fighting Kickstarter to Put Public Standards Online

Carl Malamud’s Lawsuit-Fighting Kickstarter to Put Public Standards Online
nextcity.org

The issue with this being a completely free publication is how would we maintain the development? The people who sit on the committees already volunteer their time.

NFPA still has to maintain the documents, handle grant application, research, publications, free resources (like fire safety month). Would they be able to solicit enough donations to handle even their core duties. Large companies could handle it but how many copies are sold to firms that would prefer not to spend anything on it?

"To the SDOs [standards development organizations], the system works rather well. They take on the burden of developing standards, an obligation that in many other countries falls on government. They convene experts and build systems for collating and distributing these standards. They even offer limited free access... [Malamud] argues, the effect of these standards is felt on the ground each and every day, as well as in the pocketbooks of local governments. In a video posted by Malamud, the head building inspector for Sonoma County, Calif. testifies that the country spends about $30,000 during a code cycle buying copies of building code for staff."

Everything the government uses as a standard should be freely available to the public in a machine readable format. By selling standards to the government I assert the SDO's should be required to forfeit their copyright. But that will never happen; it's the same bullshit as with PACER and court documents, some asshole has found a way to rent-seek on publicly owned IP and the system allows it because few people care out loud.