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- Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
- Path: sparky!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!Sirius.dfn.de!math.fu-berlin.de!fauern!fauna!camelot!husemann
- From: husemann@camelot.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Dirk Husemann)
- Subject: Re: was ISO Documents Cause OSI Failure?
- References: <2877@ucl-cs.uucp>
- Message-ID: <BtHJrB.H50@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
- Sender: news@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
- Organization: CSD., University of Erlangen
- Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 11:25:59 GMT
- Lines: 59
-
- J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) writes:
-
-
- >I'm interested in why the whole area of standards is so gothic
- >anyhow...
-
- Gothic is a nice description of it ...
-
- [...]
-
- >contrast with the far more distributed approach of de facto standards
- >(e.g. internet, dare i say...)
-
- Wellll, then almost everybody could implement/comment on it, that would
- be open --- or even worse, people could point out shortcomings/bugs/
- fuzziness, we don't want that, right? Also, people would notice that not even
- members of the same committee are not sure what they're talking about/writing
- about (one of the best example for obfuscated standard writing is ISO 8348-2 on
- NSAP address, shudder)
-
- Maybe we should propose an International Standard's Obfuscated Standard
- Writing Contest (ISOSWC), but then we'd be swamped with far too many
- eligible contestants, right? 8=)/8=(
-
- [...]
-
- >in fact, i believe that the "internatinal standards" in general and "open
- >systems" in particular have almost exact opposite effects from the
- >original supposed intentions -
-
- >they result in deliberate obfuscation by any companies with good technical
- >input in an area, as who wants to subvert their own sales
-
- Or by companies with *bad* technical input who want to protect their already
- established equipment and not spent money on new stuff (X.25 for example
- could need quite some improvements, X.25/LLC2 likewise 8=(
-
- [...]
-
- >as for document availability, i don't object to copyright and so forth
- >to protect costs, but there is legal recourse rather than simple
- >witholding of electronic versions
-
- Hmm, shouldn't standards designed to provide OPEN SYSTEMS be available to
- everyone who want's to have a look (I'd agree to handling & printing charge,
- but currently getting ISO docs is almost as expensive as getting drugs - or so
- they say, I'm not on drugs, rather I'm on ISO docs 8=)
-
- [...]
-
- >i spose its too much to ask for - iso is based on levelling
- >down/lowest common denominator almost by defn.
-
- yes, sigh ...
-
-
- Dirk
- ---
-
-