From spring+@pitt.edu Wed Dec 21 07:36:39 1994 Received: from pitt.edu by icarus.lis.pitt.edu (4.1/1.34) id AA13074; Wed, 21 Dec 94 07:36:39 EST Received: by pitt.edu id AA17609 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4.5 for spring@lis.pitt.edu); Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:36:31 -0500 Received: via switchmail; Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:36:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from teilhard.lis.pitt.edu via qmail ID ; Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:34:24 -0500 (EST) Received: from teilhard.lis.pitt.edu via qmail ID ; Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:34:13 -0500 (EST) Received: from Messages.8.5.N.CUILIB.3.45.SNAP.NOT.LINKED.teilhard.lis.pitt.edu.pmax.ul4 via MS.5.6.teilhard.lis.pitt.edu.pmax_ul4; Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:34:13 -0500 (EST) Resent-Message-Id: <4iy235G8XbH0E1nWNC@pitt.edu> Resent-Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 07:34:13 -0500 (EST) Resent-From: "Michael B. Spring" If-Type-Unsupported: send Resent-To: spring@lis.pitt.edu Return-Path: Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology X-Sender: amr@linus.isoc.org X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 2.0.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 18:17:21 -0500 To: OKSALA@po3.bb.unisys.com, iisp@dsys.ncsl.nist.gov Mmdf-Warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at linus.isoc.org From: Tony Rutkowski Subject: Re: Terminology and ANSI Message-Id: <9411301712.aa14498@linus.isoc.org> X-IMAPbase: 1249813034 1 Status: RO X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 1 Steve, Your overview on the standards terminology matter is useful, and does raise some key issues and differences in perspective. >There are some VERY basic assumptions that underly the whole standardization >process from the perspective of ANSI and its member companies and >organizations (and, I might add, a good deal of the rest of the world.) I >think it's worth stating them explicitly. It is useful to note that this IS a basic assumption that has prevailed for many years - and even a tradional ANSI perspective. On the other hand, its fair to note that this framework has begun to shift considerably in the past few years as the reality of competitive marketplaces and technology evolution has struck home. The traditional standardization architecture "de facto" is not the real standardization architecture anymore. There is a new standards universe of organizations that has been created where most of the real standards today are developed - with a number of threads linking the two universes. And there are people on both sides trying to bring harmony and cooperation between the two. >1. "International Standards Organizations" are those generally recognized >by both the private and public sectors as the fora for establishing formal >international standards. For the IT field, this means the ITU (a treaty >organization) and two voluntary organizations, the ISO and IEC. One of the >primary considerations for the designation is that representation is on a >national basis; that is, countries have delegates - not companies, or >individuals, or any other type of entity. Again, I think this was the case several years ago. It is no longer the situation today. >The system chooses to "recognize" certain organizations as international >standards organizations. The alternative would be to not have such a >recognition, which means that there could be any number of groups declaring >themselves to be such; and it is inevitable in such a world that there would >be scope conflict and consequent incompatibilities. It seems >counterproductive to recognize as an international standards organization >any group which claims to develop standards with participation from more >than one country. Competition between standards bodies is effectively the >elimination of standards, so anarchy is not in anyone's best interest. In >fact it would be nice if there was only one such organization at the top in >order to minimize waste and conflict; but we have a history to live with >(and regulatory constraints) which cannot be usefully challenged. The >easiest course, therefore, would be to accept the three organizations that >we already have (ITU, ISO and IEC) and work through them rather than having >more. While this was the conventional wisdom, experience over the past several years has suggested otherwise. There is no reason to believe that government sanctioned monopolies in the IT field are any better or more necessary than monopoly telecom providers, monopoly computer systems providers, or monopolies in almost any other field of human endeavour. It is not anarchy to suggest that the marketplace, or industry constellations decide on which standards they choose to use - as opposed to an ITU process, for example, where 170 government bureaucrats are regularly sent the ballots on which standards to approve or not. Plainly in the IT world, for example, the traditional monopoly (or oligopoly if you prefer) schemes which foster legions of working groups toiling on top down standards projects in effectively "unopen" environments over decades and producing mounds of paper sold for high prices and ultimately approved by unknowing bureaucrats - is a model so far removed from the IT marketplace today as to be utterly ludicrous. "Recognition" in these circumstances doesn't really account for much. (As someone who spent several years of his life in Geneva at the highest levels trying to reform this process, I can speak first hand here.) The Internet Society is an International Organization that promulgates Internet Standards developed by a very different process under the IETF, and involves a very different industry cross-section which also promotes an exceptionally open development process that brings highly innovative and productive individuals and groups into the development stream. The IETF motto that it "doesn't recognize Kings - only running code" describes the culture. As a result, its standards have captured better than 99 percent of the marketplace and lead the entire Global Information Infrastructure revolution occurring today. There are other comparable groups that have been created over the past few years that have also been highly successful. This comes full circle back to some of the basic premises of the IISP, and whether it serves anybody's interests anymore to prepetuate old architectures and processes that the marketplace recognizes as broken. I emphasize that this is not to say these organization have no value or cannot produce some good product or aren't desparately try to improve. But conversely, to pretend that such organizations enjoy some preferred stature and every other organization enjoys some lesser status, is the wrong approach. Everybody is a loser in such a scenario except the paper manufacturers and hotelkeepers and the unknowning companies who invest in standards the marketplace doesn't want. --tony