[SystemSafety] Making Standards available to Standards Committees

[Les Chambers]

Chris
We could take a biblical view of this issue:
>From the old Testament of software engineering (I found it in a cave on my
hard drive):

And so it came to pass that the wise men ascended the Mount and came upon a
burning bush. And they stared into the flames and voices ushered forth
redolent with infinite wisdom and, they listened and took notes as an aura
of enlightenment engulfed them.
And the wise men descended the Mount with the tablets and stood before the
multitudes and the multitudes had a sneak peek (an Amazon moment with a look
inside) and they saw: "step 1 thou shall not kill".
And the multitudes were sore excited and they praised the wise men and bade
them, "Bless us with the fruits of your infinite wisdom."

And the wise men gestured toward the heavens and replied, "Yea verily I say
unto you that your salvation is at hand and redemption for your past and
future sins shall be granted unto you ... At a price of 4000 bucks." 

OR
We could be less baroque and post-modern:
>From TS Eliot's the hollow men:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

Some information has such societal benefit that it must be free. I was a
guest of the Saudis in Riyadh awhile ago. They were very hospitable. I
questioned them about the great Arab poets and who I should be reading. On
the last day of my stay they gave me a beautifully bound copy of the Quran
with a bookmark in place showing me where I should start reading. This is
the heart of the matter. To evolve to any higher plain one needs to do the
reading.

I sense that the keepers of the flame, the wise men, want to be good. But
somewhere in the background there is a shadow who will nail them to a cross
if they regale the multitudes with the wisdom that must be free. 
Who are these hollow men? 
Who are these stuffed men?
Are any lurking on this list?
Would they care to come out of the shadows and justify this iniquitous price
that panders to the corporation and ignores the individual who has been, is
and will be the only source of our salvation?

Les

-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Chris Hills
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2016 12:13 AM
To: 'Derek M Jones'; systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Making Standards available to Standards
Committees


" There are places called libraries where people may find a copy of this
document."

Clearly you have not tried to find a library recently, much less  one that
actually holds the ISO standards. 
This refers to the UK (5th largest economy in the world I am told) 
 
There is a problem with many/most/all(?)  Standards bodies who are in effect
simply specialised publishing houses .  A lot of them need an overhaul in
the way they *think* then the way they work.  

OTOH why should information/knowledge be free anyway?   Most of you make a
living selling [your] knowledge. 

Regards
   Chris 

Phaedrus Systems Ltd         
FREEphone 0808 1800 358    International +44 1827 259 546
Vat GB860621831  Co Reg #04120771
Http://www.phaedsys.com  chills at phaedsys.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of
Derek M Jones
Sent: 11 May 2016 12:41
To: systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Making Standards available to Standards
Committees

Peter,

To summarise:

You are not happy with accessibility to the IEC 61508 document and would
like other people to do something about it.

There are places called libraries where people may find a copy of this
document.

Perhaps we can now move on...

-- 
Derek M. Jones           Software analysis
tel: +44 (0)1252 520667  blog:shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com
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