[SystemSafety] Free the Standards!

[Olwen Morgan]

On 30/11/2018 09:03, Peter Bernard Ladkin wrote:

> On 2018-11-30 06:08 , Martin, BJ wrote:
>> David Clarke’s analysis is well executed 
>> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/australian-standards-unfair-exchange-david-clarke/ 
>
> Yes, well worth reading! This seems to be an extreme version of a 
> phenomenon which many have criticised, including John Knight, Martyn 
> Thomas and myself. I wish our Australian colleagues and Standards 
> Australia all the best in sorting the issue out.

On occasion one might work for a client company that has an on-line 
subscription, e.g. to BSI. In such circumstances, it is far from unusual 
to see consultants downloading PDFs of standards for their own use. 
Technically its IPR theft but since consultants are often advising 
clients about how to comply with the standards, it's probably in the 
interests of standards bodies to turn a blind eye to it as long as they 
don't try selling pirated copies.

IMO the business models of standards bodies create this problem. While 
any significant part of their income derives from sales of standards, 
market forces will tend to drive up the price of homologated ones.The 
practice of WG14 and other groups of making the final committee draft 
publicly available helps but it's not an entirely satisfactory solution.


Olwen