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Don,

You quoted me out of context.  Taking no action is with respect to adding
something to the standard.  The problem is that by requiring people to do
new things you make their existing (or planned) products non compliant to
the (new) standard.  Since these standards are frequently cited in private,
and especially government, contracts you are creating a barrier to entry for
a competitor through collusion between companies (often their competitors),
which is normally a violation of anti trust laws.  

The standards process only works because there are content and process
restrictions that are used to ensure a proper balance between the benefits
of a standard and their anti competitive impact.  Ultimately the government
polices all of this to ensure that the exception granted from anti-trust is
consistent with the law.

By contrast reducing the compliance requirements through the use of obsolete
has no such anti competitive impact, and so does not get into the same
anti-trust issues.  No existing product is made non compliant - you can ship
products with the obsolete functions whenever you want.  Its a private
market choice.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: don clay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 4:24 PM
To: ata reflector
Subject: [t13] re^ xx : R/W Long commands


This message is from the T13 list server.


So if this statement by Jim McGrath is true,

        taking no action is always the safest thing for the industry.

Why were the R/W Long commands made obsolete in the first place?



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