Having bought ISO standards (and, more especially, ITU-T [formerly CCITT] recommendations) in the past, I've been aware of the outrageous prices for many years. On revisiting the issue, though, I just saw an opportunity to express my outrage (not having done so for a while).
CDs are not generally produced by non-profit organizations. They also involve royalty payments. ISO is supposedly non-profit and its standards are derived from those of the national member bodies (e.g., ANSI, CSA, DIN, etc.). ISO and member-body standards committee members are paid, not by ISO or the national bodies, but by their regular employers (who also foot the bill for their travel to and from meetings). ISO could, if it chose, structure its prices in proportion to the size and complexity of the standards. Instead, they seem to prorate the overhead component of their prices uniformly across all standards documents. I think the size of that component is indicative of a large and unwieldy bureaucracy (located in a very high-rent area -- Geneva). Of course, as advocates of metrication, we're spoiled, given that the SI brochure is free. Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jim Elwell Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 06:52 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:19056] RE: Fw: [ISO8601] Good News... Almost. At 07:24 AM 25 March 2002 +0100, Louis JOURDAN wrote: >At 15:26 -0800 24 March 2002, Bill Potts wrote: >>Even with the discount, the prices charged by ISO are outrageous. >> >>The download version of ISO-8859-1, for example, is 44 Swiss Francs -- which >>is about $26.50 U.S. >> >>The paper version is 56 Swiss Francs ($33.60), plus shipping. >> >>It's only a 10-page document!! >> >>Forget merely outrageous; it's extortionate! > >This is typical of ISO. A shame ! This is typical of most standards organizations. You are not paying for paper, you are paying for content. If the content is not worth the price, don't buy the standard. At least some of the funding for these organizations comes from selling their documents at hefty prices. A musical CD costs less than $1 to make, but most of us pay $12 to $15 to buy it. Same thing -- we are not buying a chunk of plastic, we are buying the music. Jim Elwell
