Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-lcc!ptsfa!hoptoad!gnu
From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Machine readable version of ANSI draft
Message-ID: <1604@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: Thu, 1-Jan-87 21:58:54 EST
Article-I.D.: hoptoad.1604
Posted: Thu Jan  1 21:58:54 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Jan-87 02:36:31 EST
References: <1525@hoptoad.uucp> <4350@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>
Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco
Lines: 28

In article <4350@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU>, Barry Margolin writes:
> In article <1525@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> >  But it appears that technology is not going to save us from
> >brain damaged policies in our standards bureacracy; I guess we'll have
> >to reform the bureacracies instead, which is a lot less fun than building
> >good technologies.
> 
> ANSI is basically a publishing house.  Do you know of any other major
> publishing house that would be in favor of you copying their books onto
> the net?  Why is this brain damage?

If ANSI is a publishing house, let's eliminate it and contract to
Prentice-Hall or Doubleday to publish our standards.  They do a better
printing job, bind their books well, and sell them for cheaper.  And
when they publish a book where machine readable copy makes sense,
they make machine readable available (e.g. P-H sells the Xinu tape).  I
wouldn't object to paying $65 to get a tape of the proposed ANSI C
standard, which is what the printed version costs.

The trouble is that ANSI makes the rules for how standards are created,
*in addition to* publishing them.  And they warp the rules, which warps
the standards, so they can make money.  And we get to live with the
resulting standards.  See my .signature below.
-- 
John Gilmore  {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu   gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu
  I forsee a day when there are two kinds of C compilers: standard ones and 
  useful ones ... just like Pascal and Fortran.  Are we making progress yet?
	-- ASC:GUTHERY%slb-test.csnet