What if:
1. It is ISO standard (which has a specific meaning)
but created by technical committees from consortia
(not the marketing guys who go to committee meetings
to represent their bosses viewpoint).
2. Is Royalty-free by dint of a signed participation
agreement.
3. Comes with conformance tests and a test mark (a
formal variation of a trade mark).
Would that be 'meaningful'?
len
From: Dare Obasanjo [mailto:]
The word "standard' when it comes to software and computer technology is
usually meaningless. Is something standard if it produced by a standards
body but has no conformance tests (e.g. SQL)? What if it has conformance
testing requirements but is owned by a single entity (e.g. Java)? What if it
is just widely supported with no formal body behind it (e.g. RSS)?
Whenever I hear someone say standard it's as meaningless to me as when I
hear the acronym 'SOA', it means whatever the speaker wants it to mean.
