ISO is problematic

Posted Apr 11, 2023 14:43 UTC (Tue) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733)
In reply to: ISO is problematic by chris_se
Parent article: Standardizing BPF

Restricting distribution of a "open standard" with copyright and hiding it behind a paywall is almost as reprehensible as some US states trying to do the same with the text of state law.

How much revenue does ISO actually derive from selling copies of standards? I have little doubt that the monetization value is dwarfed by the wasted economic activity of organizations having to run the formal proceurement gauntlet every time a copy of CHF 166 standard is needed.

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ISO is problematic

Posted Apr 11, 2023 17:05 UTC (Tue) by chris_se (subscriber, #99706) [Link] (1 responses)

> How much revenue does ISO actually derive from selling copies of standards? I have little doubt that the monetization value is dwarfed by the wasted economic activity of organizations having to run the formal proceurement gauntlet every time a copy of CHF 166 standard is needed.

Well, their budget is available online, at least for 2021: <https://www.iso.org/ar2021.html#finance>

That's 13 million CHF in 2021 from their members (various national standards bodies) selling standards, plus 7 million CHF revenue in net sales (I assume they only sell standards), which combined was about 46.6% of their total income, so indeed a significant amount relatively speaking. Unfortunately their expenditures aren't really that transparent (97% of their expenses goes to "operations", which is nearly 36 million CHF), so it's really unclear how bloated or lean that budget really is. There doesn't appear to be any more detailed financial statement I can find, so that's where my cursory investigation of this stops.

That all said, if the 30 richest countries in the world all paid ISO 700kCHF more per year each (that wouldn't even make a dent in any national budget of those countries), that part of the income of ISO could easily be replaced entirely, even if it turns out that ISO's current expenditures aren't bloated at all. (See above: I can't tell because they aren't very transparent.)

ISO is problematic

Posted Apr 13, 2023 21:57 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

Right, because ISO is a creature of its constituent national bodies, and the national bodies are exclusively controlled by sovereign entities, the funding of ISO is entirely in the gift of the sovereign entities ("Countries"). They can, and perhaps should, just pay for it and stop messing about with for-$$$ PDFs.

And yet, I suspect in the largely democratic or semi-democratic countries that have the largest economies of those sovereign entities, and thus would be in the best position to just fork over the cash, such a decision would be a political matter, and "Give money to ISO" is not a vote winner. Still, if the $$$ PDFs annoy you, tell your Congress member or equivalent what you want them to do about it.