Re: ISO Documents

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

John,

(And anyone else interested)

Some quibbles, but no basic disagreement, with John's comments.
However, 3166 is particularly problematic:

     -- the exceptions to permit online availability at the
     request of various committees that John refers to exist
     within ISO/IEC JTC1.  Unless things have changed while I
     wasn't looking, they aren't even available except in a very
     restricted experimental way to other ISO TCs (outside the
     information technology area).
     
     -- IS 3166 belongs to ISO TC46 on Information and
     Documentation.  TC46 is a full-fledged TC -- i.e., it is
     parallel to JTC1 in the structure, not a subsidiary of it
(and not an "IT committee").
     DIN is the Secretariat.  So, while I expect Lisa would be
     helpful (she almost always is) she has little real leverage
     or authority in this area.

Please don't kill any of the messengers here.

--john

----------------------------
 
--On Friday, 02 July, 1999, 10:26 -0400 John Day <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> At 23:07 -0400 7/1/99, Michael Mealling wrote:
> >Al Costanzo said this:
> >> Does anyone know if these documents exist anywhere online?
> >> I looked at the ISO website to no avail.
> >> They are:
> >>
> >> [ISO3166-1] ISO 3166-1:1997 Codes for the representation of
> names of >> countries and their subdivisions -- Part 1:
> Country codes. >
> >http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/codlstp1.html
> >
> >Note that ISO making something like this publicly available
> is very rare. >
> >> [ISO3166-2] ISO/DIS 3166-2 Codes for the representation of
> names of >> countries and their subdivisions -- Part 2:
> Country subdivision code. >
> >I've been talking to the 3166 Maintenance Agency and they
> have no >immediate intention of making 3166-2 available
> online. There are >also no electronic versions available at
> all. I'm talking to >someone at ANSI about the rumored
> existence of a PDF version but >so far nothing substantive has
> been found.
> >
> >Does anyone have any suggestions for how to try and convince
> ISO >to make 3166-2 available as well?
> >
> This is something that ISO has never understood.  The primary
> reason is that ISO gets most of their income from selling
> documents, unlike ITU which gets most of their income from the
> phone companies.  In general, if the committee responsible for
> the standard asks ISO to make the document available on-line,
> they will.  I know that it has been done for some standards,
> especially those like X.500 which have lots of ASN and
> electronic versions avoid transcription errors.  This might
> take some time. However, JTC1 has been slowly trying to be
> more responsive, so they may have procedures in place that
> will make it easier.  I haven't kept up with all their changes.
> 
> I suggest that you contact ANSI.  In particular, you should
> ask for the Secretariat of the committee responsible for the
> work.  Start with, Lisa Rajchel, the Secretariat of JTC1 which
> is the parent for all of the IT committees.
> 
> Take care,
> John Day
>