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Re: sunshine and standards development

• From: Tony Graham <tgraham@m...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 18:58:11 -0400 (EST)

At 15 Oct 2000 15:07 +0800, Rick JELLIFFE wrote:
...
 > As some-one else has noted, ISO (and national standards bodies) have
 > faced a real problem with the advent of the WWW that they funded
 > themselves largely by publication charges.  This is not a business model
 > that can compete against WWW feebies: so future ISO standardization will
 > tend to be for things that are not related to the web or for which there
 > may be legal disputes or political initiatives.  

The ISO process may largely fund itself from publication charges, but
ISO itself does not.

From "http://www.iso.ch/infoe/intro.htm#How is ISO's work financed":

   The financing of the Central Secretariat derives from member
   subscriptions (80 %) and revenues from the sale of the
   Organization's standards and other publications (20 %). The
   subscriptions required of members for financing the operations of
   the Central Secretariat are expressed in units and calculated in
   Swiss francs (CHF). The number of units that each member is invited
   to pay is calculated on the basis of economic indicators: gross
   national product (GNP), and value of imports and exports. The value
   of the subscription unit is set each year by the ISO Council.

80% of ISO headquarter's finances are decoupled from publication sales
since subscriptions are based on GNP, etc., not on how many ISO
publications a National Body sold in the last year.

It's hard to say whether of the sale of ISO publications by ISO
members always funds their ISO subscription.

ISO member's can also partly fund themselves from publication sales,
but that can include their own publications as well as ISO's.  For
example, see pages 11 and 12 of ANSI's 1998 annual report at
http://web.ansi.org/public/ansi_info/annrep.pdf.


Regards,


Tony Graham
======================================================================
Tony Graham                            mailto:tgraham@m...
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9632
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
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