Free ITU standards

[Pete Fraser]

For the last few years I've made use of the ITU's
policy of allowing you to register for three free
standards document downloads per year.

I visited their web site today and, if I'm interpreting
it correctly, their policy is about to get even more generous.
As of 1/1/07, you can download any in-force ITU-T
standard for free.

If only their generosity would rub off on the ISO...

[Marco Al]

Pete Fraser wrote:

> If only their generosity would rub off on the ISO...

Not to mention their openness ... seeing half the development process of
H.264 disappear behind MPEG's walls after they got in on the game in the
final hours was rather annoying.

Oh well, at least I can get some satisfaction from knowing it irritates
some of them to see H.264 called H.264 (one MPEG member makes a habit of
"correcting" people on mailing lists, while talking about MPEG's openness).

Marco

[Guido Vollbeding]

Pete Fraser wrote:
>
> If only their generosity would rub off on the ISO...

ISO is actually a totally corrupt body.
This was my impression over the past years, and it became
even more clear to me this year when I attended the JPEG
and MPEG (aka H.264) meetings at the ITU headquarters in
Geneva/Switzerland.
Note that for example the JPEG standard was originally
developed by ITU, then taken over by ISO. Then some
corrupt people came along, took over the ISO JPEG part,
and propagated their "JPEG-2000" hoax - trying to build
a business on the success of the work of original JPEG
people, and its few shortcomings.

The fact that ITU still accepts the broken JPEG-2000
attempt of ISO has solely political reasons. Internally,
my friends from the ITU-T study group 16 are just
laughing about the strange JPEG-2000 efforts of ISO
folks.
It is really a bizarre game if you watch it.
But unfortunately, you can't do anything to correct this
- those ISO folks are just totally closed and ignorant.

Regards
Guido Vollbeding
Organizer Independent JPEG Group

[Thomas Richter]

Pete Fraser wrote:

You can get the Final Drafts for free. They usually contain
a couple of minor errors, but it's enough to understand
the way how things work. For learning, I would
really suggest a book on the issues - standards are pretty
bad.

Concerning the ITU/ISO you need to understand that the two
are organized completely differently and driven by different
participants. The ISO matters are handled by volunteers that
are not being paid for, and the (as organization) has to
make some money. Participating members are universities and
industries that are have to pay ISO for keeping the machine
running. The national organization depends, but in Germany
the corresponding institute, the DIN, is actually an association
("club") that has to make a living for organizing things.

The ITU, on the other hand, originally regulates telecommuniation
matters (former CCIT) and is by that partially paid for by
industry, but also by the states that contribute to it, very
much like the UN is paid by the tax-payer as well.
Which means, if the ITU provides standards (which is a good thing,
really!) than this is because someone pays for the ITU, and this
is for a good deal tax-money.

The ISO has no such sources, and for that has to collect money
by selling what it has to offer.

Even differently, the people that write standards in the
ITU are getting paid for doing that, the ISO members are not.

It doesn't mean that one thing is better than the other -
both institutions have different purposes per se. The ITU to
keep the telecomuniations between states running (radio, TV,
phone), the ISO to generate standards the industry *may* pick
to organize itself. That is, if you break an ITU standard
for example by sending radio waves in a regulated frequency
band, you are violating a law. If you do not follow an ISO
standard, nothing like that applies. You might not compete
and might not have a chance on the market, but that's it.
ISO standards are driven by the industry needs of having
exchangable components (physically, or electronically), ITU
standards are driven by the needs of regulating the
telecommuniation.

In the area where the purposes overlap, common standards
are established.

Note that I'm also only a layman, so please forgive any
aparent errors in the above - I can only hope to clear
up some gross misconceptions without introducing too many
others. (-;

So long,
Thomas