Re: Standards vs. Recs (was RE: Divide the problem)

On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> The only place I've heard the distinction between 'Recommendation' and
> 'Standard' expressed strongly is from the ISO/SGML folks, who used to
> remind everyone of the difference all the time.  They seem to have calmed
> down lately, though.

AIUI, "standard" is a legal term of art referring to a publication, issued
by a nationally or internationally accreditted "standards body," that
serves as the legally normative definition of certain terms that may be
incorporated into contracts.  IOW, if a contract requires that certain
goods or services comply with, say, ISO standard XXX, and a dispute arises
as to whether that requirement was fulfilled, a court will treat the text
of ISO-XXX as Holy Writ in deciding the issue.  That's why ISO standards
and the like are written in such a legalistic style; they're actually
legal documents with some of the character of laws.  IANAL, but I have a
hunch that if a contract required that one party provide the other with
"well-formed XML documents," the court might not give the W3C's XML
Recommendation the same normative weight as an ANSI or ISO standard.

Received on Thursday, 8 June 2000 16:47:31 UTC