[LEAPSECS] Who do we develop standards for?

[Michael Deckers]

    On 2011-01-01 17:50, Finkleman, Dave wrote:


>  I have learned in my ISO work that we develop standards for those to

>  whom the issue matters -- not for those who are unaffected or have no

>  stake.   In our AIAA paper we enumerate the criteria for a standard.

>  Working groups are appointed to develop specific standards.  Each member

>  must be a recognized expert.  Each must have a material stake in the

>  outcome.  Membership must be balanced among industry, academia/research,

>  and government at least to the extent that no single group can dominate.


    For the issuance of ISO standards, only national standardization
    committees can be contributing P members, not persons. While I have
    contributed to ISO IEC JTC1 SC32 via the German standards
    organization (over ten years), the committe was always dominated
    by participants from industry. I am not aware of any ISO rule to
    the contrary.

    IMHO, the most effective control of ISO standards is the public
    review and comment period (usually of 3 months) to be held before
    an "FDIS" can become an ISO standard. Every comment raised within
    that period has to be considered and resolved by the working group.
    This prevents contentious standards being adopted without serious
    discussion and without a big majority in favor (it does not
    prevent useless standards, though).

    The operating procedures of ITU (as well as those of many other
    consortia like IEEE, MPEG,...) do not seem to require a public
    review before a standard is adopted. The only way to influence
    the content of a standard is the participation in the
    standardization work -- which is laborious and expensive, and
    therefore limited to the immediate stakeholders.

    The standard defining UTC should be up for public review before it
    is imposed on the world because nobody can choose not to use it.

    Michael Deckers.