At 10:21 AM 3 March 2002 -0800, Bill Potts wrote: >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). ....
I can understand the outrage, having felt it once or twice myself. For example, ASTM D3951 -- Standard Practice for Commercial Packaging set my company back $28. It is a single page of paper! Nonetheless, if it is not worth the money, don't buy it. We had to have that ASTM document for contract compliance, so was it worth $28? Yes, grudgingly so. Whether the institution is profit or non-profit is not part of the problem, since the profit of most companies is not a major factor in the cost of their products (typically being 5% to 10%). However, the fact that ISO (and ASTM and others) have no real competition for the standards they provide DOES affect the price. And allows them to have their expensive offices in Geneva, and demand that member employers foot essentially all of their costs. I guess what I am trying to say is that there is something amiss here, but the crazy pricing is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. And, no, I have no ideas how to improve the situation. Jim Elwell Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
