Article:		ISO to Require Royalties?
Subject:		ISO is not a standards body
Date:		2003-09-30 18:00:38
From:		Tom Poe
ISO charges for copies of standards. You want to meet the requirements for ISO9000 certification? Just pay thousands of dollars, and it's yours. Of course, it's not really yours. These back alley crooks have you contract with a private "authorized" firm to take you through the steps. When you're all done, you get a notebook with forms in it to show your customers. This notebook is a legal document. Right? Well, why not fill out the forms yourself, and hold yourself accountable for what's in it? The result is the same. The "authorized" firm has a disclaimer, that the notebook is only as good as the last moment the firm was on your premises. Nice scam, eh? You want to meet the requirements for XML? Just pay thousands of dollars, and it's yours. Can't wait to see the disclaimer for this trick. That is not a standards body. That is a parasite.

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• ISO is not a standards body
  2003-09-30 18:37:01 Simon Cox [Reply]
  
  ISO is a private (not for profit) organisation.
  It is not formally associated with any government, the UN, UNESCO etc.
  While not strictly a "membership" organisation, its voting structure recognises national standards organisations, many of which are themselves private (sometimes for-profit) organisations.
  It gains legitimacy through the community's acceptance of its "standards", and clearly this has been demonstrated, so the previous contributor is incorrect: ISO _is_ a standards body.
  Note, however, that the work of ISO is almost entirely carried out by "volunteers" whose employers typically grant them time-out from their day-jobs to do a bit of standards work on the side.
  (Some employers perceive enough value in this that they employ people full time just to work on ISO committees, perhaps to influence them in ways that are convenient - the tyranny of the willing is common in volunteer organisations ;-).)
  It does require funding to run its secretariat.
  Charging for standards is clearly counter-productive, but this begs the question: what other funding model is available?