Australian Standards should carry some weight and like legislation need
to be freely available.
At a time when printed documents were the only way to distribute
information, it may have been OK to charge for this. And SA could still
offer print on demand for a fee. But the standards themselves should be
available online for the whole community to refer to and become familiar
with and even call for changes.
Mandatory standards should certainly be made freely available.
I ofcourse have to give a plug for the Australian Governance of ICT
Standard, which has been adopted as an ISO Standard.
http://ramin.com.au/itgovernance/as8015.html
With regard to payment, I don't think it is appropriate for Standards
Australia to pay for this but the committees do need broad
representation and funding mechanisms for this to happen do need to be
put in place.
Marghanita
On 1/12/18 8:48 am, Tom Worthington wrote:
On 30/11/18 2:14 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:
... prices ... buy Australian and International Business Standards as
excessive, unsustainable, and unfair to Australian business. ...
Yes, the issue with access to standards is similar to that for academic
publishing. Volunteers, supported by their employers (and in many cases
publicly funded), write the documents which are then sold by a
for-profit company. The organizations which supported the development of
the documents have to then pay for copies.
There are proposals for Open Access to academic research. I
suggest the same should apply to standards. This would include the
Australian Government, and its agencies, requiring as a condition of
funding that standards are published free online. Also any new
legislation which requires the use of standards should only use ones
freely available.
I propose the Australian Parliament conduct an inquiry into access to
government funded research and standards. This should include an
investigation of the commercialization of Standards Australia (SA)
publishing, and who benefited from it.
“Fifteen years ago, the distribution of Australian Standards was
privatised. ...
While working for the Department of Defence in the 1990s I was on a
SA committee helping to develop standards, later I represented the
Australian Computer Society at some SA meetings. I became increasingly
concerned about the standards processes. In the early 2000s decided to
stop having any further involvement with SA:
"As an individual IT professional I believe that SA's inability to make
standards free and freely available online makes their standards process
unworkable. ... I will not be participating in any further SA or ISO
standards making, instead I will be using open access standards bodies
and recommending my colleagues do likewise. I will not be supporting
future funding for ISO or SA."
https://blog.tomw.net.au/2009/11/australian-and-international-standards.html
--
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://ramin.com.au
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