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- From: "Theodore E. Dennison" <dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com>
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.edu
- Subject: Re: ANSI C and POSIX
- Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 08:56:09 -0400
- Organization: Lockheed Martin Information Systems
- Message-ID: <3174EA69.59E2B600@escmail.orl.mmc.com>
- References: <JSA.96Feb16135027@organon.com> <4knr5l$gb1@nntp.Stanford.EDU> <dewar.829400155@schonberg> <4x4tqo2b1d.fsf_-_@bernoulli.enst-bretagne.fr> <4kuc6p$3bt@nntp.Stanford.EDU> <dewar.829628741@schonberg>
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-
- Robert Dewar wrote:
- >
- > "You still have to buy them from the IEEE. They are reluctant to
- > give them away because document sales pay for a significant
- > portion of IEEE's support for standards."
- >
- > To me, this is a terrible way to deal with standards. It is very important
- > to make standards freely available if they are to have maximum impact.
- > This can certainly be achieved, as has been demonstrated by the Ada 95
- > ANSI/ISO standard, which is available freely from the net, and can be
- > copied by anyone without charge.
-
- That is quite clear. Unfortunately IEEE, ANSI, and ISO are creatures
- of an earlier time; a time when people generally didn't have internet
- access and cheap access to laser printers. In the seventies and
- eighties you were going to need to pay SOMEONE to print and bind the
- document for you anyway, so why not tack on a few extra bucks to
- subsidize the process that created the standard in the first place?
-
- Unfortunately the standards committes became dependent on this type
- of funding. Now that times have changed, they have a tough time
- adjusting. In practice what you will find is late DRAFT versions of
- the standards posted on the internet. This is commendable, but
- inadaquate.
-
- Ironicly, MIL and DOD standards don't seem to have this problem, and
- can be found posted all over the internet. This is ironic because the
- DoD is trying to move away from MIL standards toward the industry
- standards.
-
- (sigh) What'cha gonna' do?
-
- --
- T.E.D.
- | Work - mailto:dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com |
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-