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From: mwm@ea.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: A non-hostile question for Libertari
Message-ID: <22400053@ea.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 1-Dec-84 04:00:00 EST
Article-I.D.: ea.22400053
Posted: Sat Dec  1 04:00:00 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 09:09:17 EST
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Nf-ID: #R:alice:-311900:ea:22400053:000:3099
Nf-From: ea!mwm    Dec  1 03:00:00 1984

> Should a properly limited government in a free society
> include organizations equivalent to today's National
> Bureau of Standards?

No, it should not. Since NBS standards are *not* enforced by law, but by
practice, there isn't any point in having the standards defined by a
government agency (with people from concerned companies making the
decisions :-).

> However, this organization occupies a unique niche:
> it DEFINES terms that affect the meaning of many laws
> and contracts: seconds, meters, volts, and so on.

No, it standardizes what was common practice, and chooses a (hopefully)
happy medium when there is more than one definition for the term in use.
When was the last time NBS (or any other standards organization, for that
matter) changed the definition of something enough to matter in practice?

> The difficulty with leaving the definition of weights and
> measures to private industry is that here is one place
> where I do not want multiple competing definitions.

So what do you do when you buy 1000 tons of something, and get 2,000,000
lbs, instead of the 1,000,000 kgs you expected?

> If there were multiple standards organizations, then every
> time I signed a contract to buy N pounds of something,
> I would have to specify, at least in principle, the standard
> that defined 'pound' in that contract.  But what if that
> standards company goes out of business?  What if they decide
> to change their standard?

An industry would generally have a "common definition" for the units they
use. If you are going to be doing business in an industry, it behooves you
to know what that definition is.  There are lots of examples of this in CS.
Lots of good examples of how not having a standard causes problems, too.
However, as soon as there is *some* document - even if it isn't a standard
yet - people start asking "how does it compare to XXX.YYY?"

> It seems to me that since the decisions of a standards organization
> effectively have force of law, these organizations cannot be
> left uncontrolled.

If they were run by industry (are you *sure* they aren't now?), they would
probably behave much as they do now - a group decides they need a standard
for something, lets others know, then they meet and work out a compromise
that hurts the members of the committee least.

[Classic case: there was one LAN standard (forgot which) wherein some of
the members had broadcast systems in the field, whereas others had token
passings systems in the field. Result: the first draft specified the
*hardware*, but the software could be either of the above. Cute.]

> This, anyway, is my current opinion.  Anyone care to try
> to talk me out of it?

Yup. I doubt if I did, but I tried. However, to exemplify what I mean,
suppose that someone bought 120 ft of X from me. I sell them 120 ft, but my
ft are only 10 inches long (my inches are standard inches). Now, they are
going to object, and probably sue me. The judge wouldn't bother trying to
find a law that defined a "foot" (does such exist? If so, where?), but
would tell me to give the guy his missing 20 ft of X.