From walt@swcp.com Sun Jan 15 02:49:06 1995 Received: from kitsune.swcp.com (swcp.com) by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA21083 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Sun, 15 Jan 1995 17:47:02 +0100 Received: (from walt@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id JAA09014 for SC22WG5@dkuug.dk; Sun, 15 Jan 1995 09:49:06 -0700 Date: Sun, 15 Jan 1995 09:49:06 -0700 From: Walt Brainerd Message-Id: <199501151649.JAA09014@kitsune.swcp.com> To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Subject: Electronic versions of ISO 1539 X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 I think it is time to share a small sad story with all of you. Almost a year ago, a major vendor of Fortran compilers proposed distributing a copy of the Fortran 90 standard with each copy of their compiler. This proposal probably would have generated many tens of thousands of dollars for ISO and the member bodies (and presumably some for Unicomp as well). Some members of WG5 and X3J3 think that the standard should be available at no cost and so would not approve of such an arrangement; however, those people will be disappointed at the reason this proposal was rejected: too little money! The counter proposal supported by several member bodies was that the vendor should pay $150 for each of thousands of electronic copies of the standard distributed! What planet do they get these people from? I actually spoke at length by telephone to the ANSI person responsible for such matters and he said they must charge this amount to "maximize revenues from sales of the standard". I do not consider myself a business genius, but was able to point out that selling zero copies was not going to maximize their revenues. The $150 proposal was actually made with a straight face to the vendor. I assume the laughter (or crying) has not died out yet. The next time a standards organization asks you for money to support their activities, I think a perfectly reasonable response would be: "You had a chance to earn many times this amount by selling electronic copies of the results of our work and you refused, so I assume you don't really need the money." Walt Brainerd walt@fortran.com Unicomp, Inc. 1-505-275-0800 856-1501 (fax) 1874 San Bernardino Ave NE Visit the Fortran market: Albuquerque, NM 87122 USA http://www.fortran.com/fortran