PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process [LWN.net]

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 22, 2011 4:16 UTC (Thu) by dps (subscriber, #5725)
Parent article: PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Actually I know why ISO standards are not public. Some of the *funding* that pays for the ISO is raised by the sale of standards. I understand that the prices are significant, probably because expecting volume sales is unrealistic and some copying/sharing is inevitable.

Keeping the standards expensive may be in the interest of the large commercial outfits but it is not the only reason. Anything that undermines the sale of standards is obviously is the interests of neither the ISO nor the people that pay people to participate in the process.

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PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 22, 2011 11:49 UTC (Thu) by Kwi (subscriber, #59584) [Link]

Considering that all standardization work is performed not by ISO itself, but by national standard bodies (often funded by tax payers), I don't buy this argument.

It is true that sales of publications is a major source of income - 30% according to the ISO website - but what is that money spent on?

ISO is in itself just the ISO Central Secretariat in Geneva. The secretariat:
- has 154 full-time employees
- costs USD 40 million a year to run

For a purely coordinating role, 154 employees seems pretty excessive, and so does the yearly expenses at USD 257.056 per employee. USD 40 million a year, and then you haven't even produced any standards yet!

To get any work done, you need to add an estimated USD 140 million a year spent by the national standard bodies on ISO work, and an unknown (but probably much higher) amount spent by the participating companies. And none of this is paid for by selling ISO standards!

ISO is a money sink.

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 22, 2011 12:17 UTC (Thu) by spaetz (subscriber, #32870) [Link]

> seems pretty excessive, and so does the yearly expenses at USD 257.056 per employee.

Not if you ever needed to rent a flat or buy food in Geneva :-)

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 24, 2011 20:25 UTC (Sat) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

If the ISO disappeared tomorrow, would anyone notice? It seems to me like a pointless government bureaucracy that has a net negative effect on nearly everything it touches, with a tendency to produce standards and meta-standards that no one actually uses.

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 24, 2011 21:41 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

Many many industries care about ISO: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_In...

For example, it's ISO standards that say what makes paper "A4", makes film "400 speed", says what the standard freight container sizes are, describe ISBN and ISSN barcodes, etc., etc.

I'm sure there's plenty of nonsense in plenty of ISO standards, but we do need *some* standard definitions of these things so that different people and businesses can talk to each other about complicated technical matters without having to check every detail all the time.

ISO does seem particularly ill-suited to handling software-related standards, though.

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 30, 2011 19:06 UTC (Fri) by Baylink (subscriber, #755) [Link]

Well, I thought it was the American Standards Association (now ANSI) that said what made "film" "400 speed", but maybe that's just me. So many things are just me.

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Oct 2, 2011 19:52 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

And "A4" was defined by DIN (the German standards body) before ISO copied it.

PostgreSQL and the SQL standards process

Posted Sep 23, 2011 22:06 UTC (Fri) by Tobu (subscriber, #24111) [Link]

That looks a lot like academic publishing. Set up a lot of little fiefdoms where people and their employers compete for status, giving away senior roles to the first to join. Participants are the ones hashing out the work, reviewing it, getting it publication ready, and marketing it. The standard body/academic publisher owns exclusive rights to the publication though. Sell the work back to participants, libraries, and any interested parties that can afford it. Print money (Elsevier operates at a grander scale than ISO: 1.5 billion £ of annual revenue, mostly from subscriptions).

Better standards bodies are those with a clear royalty-free, patent-free mandate for both access and implementation.