[LINK] Australian and International Standards Making Needs Reform

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Fri Nov 20 12:31:33 AEDT 2009


Greetings from the Standards Australia Council Meeting, being held in 
Sydney, where I am representing the Australian Computer Society. New 
directors elected were: Peter Burne, Peter Cockbane, Richard Brookes. 
The Consumer Electronics Suppliers’ Association (CESA) has joined SA.

There were three resolutions from members, for the annual report, 
quarterly, six monthly reports and a register of councillors. These were 
supported by the chairman and passed.

The financial report indicates that there has been loss, due to the 
Global Finance Crisis. The situation is not disastrous, but SA does not 
appear to have achieved all the savings it would with the move to online 
standards making. An expensive inner city office is not needed, as 
clients will never visit. No dedicated standards committee meeting rooms 
are needed, as most standards making will b online and the few rooms 
needed can be rented or got free from member organisations.

Dr. Alan Morrison, deputy SA Chair and President of the International 
Standards Organisation addressed the meeting. He noted that as 
developing nations expanded their economies, they will take up positions 
on standards committees. He commented that this was of concern to the 
USA. I can see how this would concern the USA, but it will be an 
opportunity for Australia, which has a . He noted a move in the EU for 
providing standards for free and this creates a dilemma for individual 
countries and for the USA. He argued that standards are not free, with 
meeting and coordination costs. He said that ISO is working on a measure 
of a value of standards to show countries why they should not be free.

There has been considerable controversy with Standards Australia's New 
Business Model, which was touched on by the CEO in his report. This 
model is essentially user pays, with those organisations who want a new 
standard to pay for the cost of its development. It itself user pays is 
not new or that controversial, those developing standards were already 
paying most of the cost through providing experts to write the standards 
at no charge. What has been added to this is a charge from SA to cover 
their administrative costs. The CEO indicated that some of this would be 
reconsidered following some concern from members.

Making user pays more controversial is that SA's exclusive publishing 
agreement with the company SAI Global, precludes the standards developed 
being available for free online. This was touched on briefly during the 
meeting.

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 do not agree with the ISO President's view that a free 
open source approach will not work and have had doubts about the ISO 
process since reading Carl Malamud's book more than a decade ago: 
"Exploring the Internet: A Technical Travelogue" (1992), in which 
Australians figure prominently. So 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. However, these views are my 
own and are not necessarily shared by everyone at ACS and there is no 
plan for ACS to withdraw its support for SA.

More in my blog at:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/11/australian-and-international-standards.html>.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274




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