From walt@swcp.com Tue Feb 7 03:13:16 1995 Received: from kitsune.swcp.com by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA00269 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Tue, 7 Feb 1995 18:11:11 +0100 Received: (from walt@localhost) by kitsune.swcp.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) id KAA11458 for SC22WG5@dkuug.dk; Tue, 7 Feb 1995 10:13:16 -0700 Date: Tue, 7 Feb 1995 10:13:16 -0700 From: Walt Brainerd Message-Id: <199502071713.KAA11458@kitsune.swcp.com> To: SC22WG5@dkuug.dk Subject: ISO, DIN, ANSI, JSA, ... X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 For those who would like to see standards distributed (more) freely: As I have mentioned several times, I have received legal opinions that a document that has been distributed widely with no copyright notice (e.g., the draft of the Fortran standard) cannot be copyrighted later, even if the form and format are changed somewhat. Maybe things have changed since then; maybe international treaties and laws say otherwise. But if someone is really interested in this, how about getting another legal opinion and, if appropriate, challenging these people? My personal opinion is that it would not be bad if ISO and member bodies charged a small fee for distribution of the standard, but that is not how they are looking at it, as can be understood by recent actions by ISO and several member bodies. Instead they seem to think they should make a lot of money from this and are seriously impededing availability and distribution of the standard. [Yes, I would love to do this myself, but I almost bankrupted myself once fooling with standards and I don't think I want to do it again. I would lend my assistance where appropriate, however.] Walt Brainerd walt@fortran.com Unicomp, Inc. +1-505-275-0800 856-1501 (fax) 1874 San Bernardino Ave NE +1-500-Fortran (367-8726) Albuquerque, NM 87122 USA http://www.fortran.com/fortran