Standards organization
Encyclopedia
A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is any organization whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise producing technical standards that are intended to address the needs of some relatively wide base of affected adopters.
Most standards are voluntary in the sense that they are offered for adoption by people or industry without being mandated in law. Some standards become mandatory when they are adopted by regulators as legal requirements in particular domains.
The term formal standard refers specifically to a specification that has been approved by a standards setting organization. The term de jure
standard refers to a standard mandated by legal requirements or refers generally to any formal standard. In contrast, the term de facto standard
refers to a specification (or protocol or technology) that has achieved widespread use and acceptance – often without being approved by any standards organization (or receiving such approval only after it already has achieved widespread use). Examples of de facto standards that were not approved by any standards organizations (or at least not approved until after they were in widespread de facto use) include the Hayes command set
developed by Hayes
, Apple
's TrueType
font design and the PCL
protocol used by Hewlett-Packard
in the computer printer
s they produced.
Normally, the term standards organization is not used to refer to the individual parties participating within the standards developing organization in the capacity of founders, benefactors, stakeholders, members or contributors, who themselves may function as the standards organizations.
By geographic designation, there are international, regional, and national standards bodies (the latter often referred to as NSBs). By technology or industry designation, there are standards developing organizations (SDOs) and also standards setting organizations (SSOs) also known as consortia. Standards organizations may be governmental, quasi-governmental or non-governmental entities. Quasi- and non-governmental standards organizations are often non-profit organizations.
There are many international standards organizations. The three largest and most well-established such organizations are the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC), and the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU), which have each existed for more than 50 years (founded in 1947, 1906, and 1865, respectively) and which are all based in Geneva
, Switzerland
. They have established tens of thousands of standards covering almost every conceivable topic. Many of these are then adopted worldwide replacing various incompatible 'homegrown' standards. Many of these standards are naturally evolved from those designed in-house within an industry, or by a particular country, while others have been built from scratch by groups of experts who sit on various technical committees (TCs). These three organizations together comprise the World Standards Cooperation
(WSC) alliance.
ISO is composed of the national standards bodies (NSBs), one per member economy. The IEC is similarly composed of national committees, one per member economy. In some cases, the national committee to the IEC of an economy may also be the ISO member from that country or economy. ISO and IEC are private international organizations that are not established by any international treaty. Their members may be non-governmental organizations or governmental agencies, as selected by ISO and IEC (which are privately-established organizations).
The ITU is a treaty-based organization established as a permanent agency of the United Nations
, in which governments are the primary members, although other organizations (such as non-governmental organizations and individual companies) can also hold a form of direct membership status in the ITU as well. Another example of a treaty-based international standards organization with government membership is the Codex Alimentarius Commission
.
In addition to these, a large variety of independent international standards organizations such as the ASTM International
, the IEEE, the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF), SAE International
, TAPPI
, the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C), and the Universal Postal Union
(UPU) develop and publish standards for a variety of international uses. In many such cases, these international standards organizations are not based on the principle of one member per country. Rather, membership in such organizations is open to those interested in joining and willing to agree to the organization's by-laws – having either organizational/corporate or individual technical experts as members.
(CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization
(CENELEC), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute
(ETSI), and the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements
(IRMM) in Europe, the Pacific Area Standards Congress (PASC), the Pan American Standards Commission (COPANT), the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO), the Arabic industrial development and mining organization
(AIDMO), and others.
In the European Union, only standards created by CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI are recognized as "European standards", and member states are required to notify the European Commission and each other about all the draft technical regulations concerning ICT products and services before they are adopted in national law. These rules were laid down in Directive 98/34/EC with the goal of providing transparency and control with regard to technical regulations.
Sub-regional standards organizations also exist such as the MERCOSUR
Standardization Association (AMN), the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality
(CROSQ), and the ASEAN Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ), EAC East Africa Standards Committee www.eac-quality.net, and the Gulf Standardasation Organasation for GCC Arab Countries.
(ABNT), the Spanish Association for Standarization and Certification (AENOR), the French association for Standardization
(AFNOR), the American National Standards Institute
(ANSI), the British Standards Institution (BSI), the Mexican Dirección General de Normas (DGN), the Deutsches Institut für Normung
(DIN), the Instituto Argentino de Normalización y Certificación
(IRAM), the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee
(JISC), the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS), the Nederlandse Norm (NEN), the South African Bureau of Standards
(SABS), the Standardization Administration of China
(SAC), the Standards Council of Canada
(SCC), the Swedish Standards Institute
(SIS), Standards Norway
(SN), the Swiss Association for Standardization
(SNV), Standards New Zealand (SNZ), or Colombia
(ICONTEC). A national standards body is likely the sole member from that economy in ISO.
NSBs may be either public or private sector organizations, or combinations of the two. For example, the three NSBs of Canada, Mexico and the United States are, respectively, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the General Bureau of Standards (Dirección General de Normas, DGN), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). SCC is a Canadian Crown Corporation, DGN is a governmental agency within the Mexican Ministry of Economy, and ANSI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with members from both the private and public sectors. The National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), the U.S. government's standards agency, cooperates with ANSI under a memorandum of understanding
to collaborate on the United States Standards Strategy. The determinates of whether an NSB for a particular economy is a public or private sector body may include the historical and traditional roles that the private sector fills in public affairs in that economy or the development stage of that economy.
, the term standards developing organization (SDO) generally refers to the thousands of industry- or sector-based standards organizations which develop and publish industry specific standards. Some economies feature only an NSB with no other SDOs. Large economies like the United States and Japan feature several hundred SDOs, many of which are coordinated by the central NSBs of each country (ANSI and JISC in this case). In some cases, international industry-based SDOs such as the IEEE and the Audio Engineering Society
(AES) may have direct liaisons with international standards organizations, having input to international standards without going through a national standards body. SDOs are differentiated from standards setting organizations (SSOs) (see Trends below) in that SDOs may be accredited to develop standards using open and transparent processes.
s, which detail how products interconnect with one another, and safety standards
, which establish characteristics required for a product or process to be safe for the humans, animals and environment. The subject of their work can be narrow or broad. Another area of interest is in defining how the behavior and performance of products is measured and described in data sheets.
Overlapping or competing standards bodies tend to cooperate purposefully, by seeking to define boundaries between the scope of their work, and by operating in a hierarchical fashion in terms of national, regional and international scope; international organizations tend to have as members national organizations; and standards emerging at national level (such as BS 5750
) can be adopted at regional levels (BS 5750 was adopted as EN 29000) and at international levels (BS 5750 was adopted as ISO 9000).
Unless adopted by a government, standards carry no force in law. However, most jurisdictions have truth in advertising
laws, and ambiguities can be reduced if a company offers a product that is "compliant" with a standard.
Although it can be a tedious and lengthy process, formal standard setting is essential to developing new technologies. For example, since 1865, the telecommunications industry has depended on the ITU
to establish the telecommunications standards that have been adopted worldwide. The ITU has created numerous telecommunications standards including telegraph specifications, allocation of telephone numbers, interference protection, and protocols for a variety of communications technologies. The standards that are created through standards organizations lead to improved product quality, ensured interoperability of competitors’ products, and they provide a technological baseline for future research and product development. Formal standard setting through standards organizations has numerous benefits for consumers including increased innovation, multiple market participants, reduced production costs, and the efficiency effects of product interchangeability.
Some users of standards mistakenly assume that all standards are in the public domain
. This assumption is correct only for standards produced by the central government
s whose publications are not amenable to copyright
. Any standards produced by non-governmental entities remain the intellectual property
of their developers and are protected, just like any other publication
s, by copyright
laws and international treaties. However, the intellectual property extends only to the standard itself and not to its use. For instance if a company sells a device that is compliant with a given standard, it is not liable for further payment to the standards organization except in the special case when the organization holds patent rights or some other ownership of the intellectual property described in the standard.
It is, however, liable for any patent infringement by its implementation, just as with any other implementation of technology. The standards organizations give no guarantees that patents relevant to a given standard have been identified. ISO standards draw attention to this in the foreword with a statement like the following: "Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights."
Since traditional, widely respected standards organizations tend to operate at a slower pace than technology evolves, many standards they develop are becoming less relevant because of the inability of their developers to keep abreast with the technological innovation. As a result, a new class of standards setters appeared on the standardization
arena: the industry consortia or standards setting organizations (SSOs). Despite having limited financial resources, some of them enjoy truly international acceptance. One example is the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C), whose standards for HTML
, CSS
, and XML
are used universally throughout the world. There are also community-driven associations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF), a worldwide network of volunteers who collaborate to set standards for lower-level software solutions.
Some industry-driven standards development efforts don't even have a formal organizational structure. They are projects funded by large corporations. Among them are the OpenOffice.org
, a Sun Microsystems
-sponsored international community of volunteers working on an open-standard
software that aims to compete with Microsoft Office
, and two commercial groups competing fiercely with each other to develop an industry-wide standard for high-density optical storage
.
Most standards are voluntary in the sense that they are offered for adoption by people or industry without being mandated in law. Some standards become mandatory when they are adopted by regulators as legal requirements in particular domains.
The term formal standard refers specifically to a specification that has been approved by a standards setting organization. The term de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....
standard refers to a standard mandated by legal requirements or refers generally to any formal standard. In contrast, the term de facto standard
De facto standard
A de facto standard is a custom, convention, product, or system that has achieved a dominant position by public acceptance or market forces...
refers to a specification (or protocol or technology) that has achieved widespread use and acceptance – often without being approved by any standards organization (or receiving such approval only after it already has achieved widespread use). Examples of de facto standards that were not approved by any standards organizations (or at least not approved until after they were in widespread de facto use) include the Hayes command set
Hayes command set
The Hayes command set is a specific command-language originally developed for the Hayes Smartmodem 300 baud modem in 1981. The command set consists of a series of short text strings which combine together to produce complete commands for operations such as dialing, hanging up, and changing the...
developed by Hayes
Hayes Microcomputer Products
Hayes Microcomputer Products was a U.S.-based manufacturer of modems. They are particularly well known for their Smartmodem, which is introduced the ability to control the modem through commands sent in the data stream itself. The "smart modem" approach dramatically simplified operation, making...
, Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
's TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font design and the PCL
Printer Command Language
Printer Command Language, more commonly referred to as PCL, is a page description language developed by Hewlett-Packard as a printer protocol and has become a de facto industry standard. Originally developed for early inkjet printers in 1984, PCL has been released in varying levels for thermal,...
protocol used by Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
in the computer printer
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
s they produced.
Normally, the term standards organization is not used to refer to the individual parties participating within the standards developing organization in the capacity of founders, benefactors, stakeholders, members or contributors, who themselves may function as the standards organizations.
Overview
Standards organizations can be classified by their role, position and the extent of their influence on the local, national, regional and global standardization arena.By geographic designation, there are international, regional, and national standards bodies (the latter often referred to as NSBs). By technology or industry designation, there are standards developing organizations (SDOs) and also standards setting organizations (SSOs) also known as consortia. Standards organizations may be governmental, quasi-governmental or non-governmental entities. Quasi- and non-governmental standards organizations are often non-profit organizations.
International standards organizations
Broadly, an international standards organization develops international standards. (This does not necessarily restrict the use of other published standards internationally.)There are many international standards organizations. The three largest and most well-established such organizations are the International Organization for Standardization
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
(ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission
International Electrotechnical Commission
The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"...
(IEC), and the International Telecommunication Union
International Telecommunication Union
The International Telecommunication Union is the specialized agency of the United Nations which is responsible for information and communication technologies...
(ITU), which have each existed for more than 50 years (founded in 1947, 1906, and 1865, respectively) and which are all based in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. They have established tens of thousands of standards covering almost every conceivable topic. Many of these are then adopted worldwide replacing various incompatible 'homegrown' standards. Many of these standards are naturally evolved from those designed in-house within an industry, or by a particular country, while others have been built from scratch by groups of experts who sit on various technical committees (TCs). These three organizations together comprise the World Standards Cooperation
World Standards Cooperation
World Standards Cooperation is an alliance of the IEC, ISO and ITU top-tier international standardization organizations.-External links:***...
(WSC) alliance.
ISO is composed of the national standards bodies (NSBs), one per member economy. The IEC is similarly composed of national committees, one per member economy. In some cases, the national committee to the IEC of an economy may also be the ISO member from that country or economy. ISO and IEC are private international organizations that are not established by any international treaty. Their members may be non-governmental organizations or governmental agencies, as selected by ISO and IEC (which are privately-established organizations).
The ITU is a treaty-based organization established as a permanent agency of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, in which governments are the primary members, although other organizations (such as non-governmental organizations and individual companies) can also hold a form of direct membership status in the ITU as well. Another example of a treaty-based international standards organization with government membership is the Codex Alimentarius Commission
Codex Alimentarius
The Codex Alimentarius is a collection of internationally recognized standards, codes of practice, guidelines and other recommendations relating to foods, food production and food safety. Its name derives from the Codex Alimentarius Austriacus...
.
In addition to these, a large variety of independent international standards organizations such as the ASTM International
ASTM International
ASTM International, known until 2001 as the American Society for Testing and Materials , is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, and services...
, the IEEE, the Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...
(IETF), SAE International
SAE International
SAE International is an organization for engineering professionals in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial vehicle industries. The Society is a standards development organization for the engineering of powered vehicles of all kinds, including cars, trucks, boats, aircraft, and others.SAE...
, TAPPI
TAPPI
TAPPI is a registered not-for-profit, international Non-Governmental Organization of about 14,000 member engineers, scientists, managers, academics and others involved in the areas of pulp, and paper...
, the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
(W3C), and the Universal Postal Union
Universal Postal Union
The Universal Postal Union is an international organization that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to the worldwide postal system. The UPU contains four bodies consisting of the Congress, the Council of Administration , the Postal Operations Council and the...
(UPU) develop and publish standards for a variety of international uses. In many such cases, these international standards organizations are not based on the principle of one member per country. Rather, membership in such organizations is open to those interested in joining and willing to agree to the organization's by-laws – having either organizational/corporate or individual technical experts as members.
Regional standards organizations
Regional standards bodies also exist, such as the European Committee for StandardizationEuropean Committee for Standardization
The European Committee for Standardization or Comité Européen de Normalisation , is a non-profit organisation whose mission is to foster the European economy in global trading, the welfare of European citizens and the environment by providing an efficient infrastructure to interested parties for...
(CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization
European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization
CENELEC is the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization.CENELEC is responsible for European Standardization in the area of electrical engineering...
(CENELEC), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute
European Telecommunications Standards Institute
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is an independent, non-profit, standardization organization in the telecommunications industry in Europe, with worldwide projection...
(ETSI), and the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements
Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements
The Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements , located in Geel, Belgium, is one of the seven institutes of the Joint Research Centre , a Directorate-General of the European Commission ....
(IRMM) in Europe, the Pacific Area Standards Congress (PASC), the Pan American Standards Commission (COPANT), the African Organization for Standardization (ARSO), the Arabic industrial development and mining organization
Arabic industrial development and mining organization
Arabic Industrial Development and Mining Organization -History:In a summit in Kuwait 1966 the Arab League Council decided to establish an organization to improve and develop the industry in general. The decision was approved by the Arab Economic Council in 1968. The headquarters was decided to be...
(AIDMO), and others.
In the European Union, only standards created by CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI are recognized as "European standards", and member states are required to notify the European Commission and each other about all the draft technical regulations concerning ICT products and services before they are adopted in national law. These rules were laid down in Directive 98/34/EC with the goal of providing transparency and control with regard to technical regulations.
Sub-regional standards organizations also exist such as the MERCOSUR
Mercosur
Mercosur or Mercosul is an economic and political agreement among Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto. Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people,...
Standardization Association (AMN), the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality
CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality
The CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality is a regional standards body for the Caribbean Community CARICOM bloc of countries.CROSQ is a Caribbean representative body to ISO....
(CROSQ), and the ASEAN Consultative Committee for Standards and Quality (ACCSQ), EAC East Africa Standards Committee www.eac-quality.net, and the Gulf Standardasation Organasation for GCC Arab Countries.
National standards bodies (NSBs)
In general, each country or economy has a single recognized national standards body (NSB). Examples include the Brazilian National Standards OrganizationBrazilian National Standards Organization
The Brazilian National Standards Organization, usually rendered in Portuguese as Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas , is the normative body which is responsible for technical standards in Brazil, and intends to promote technological development in the country...
(ABNT), the Spanish Association for Standarization and Certification (AENOR), the French association for Standardization
AFNOR
Association française de Normalisation is the French national organization for standardization and its International Organization for Standardization member body....
(AFNOR), the American National Standards Institute
American National Standards Institute
The American National Standards Institute is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international...
(ANSI), the British Standards Institution (BSI), the Mexican Dirección General de Normas (DGN), the Deutsches Institut für Normung
Deutsches Institut für Normung
is the German national organization for standardization and is that country's ISO member body. DIN is a Registered German Association headquartered in Berlin...
(DIN), the Instituto Argentino de Normalización y Certificación
Instituto Argentino de Normalización y Certificación
The Argentine Normalization and Certification Institute is the International Organization for Standardization member body for Argentina....
(IRAM), the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee
Japanese Industrial Standards Committee
The is a standards organization and is the International Organization for Standardization member body for Japan. It is also a member of the International Electrotechnical Commission.The JISC establishes and maintains the Japanese Industrial Standards....
(JISC), the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS), the Nederlandse Norm (NEN), the South African Bureau of Standards
South African Bureau of Standards
The South African Bureau of Standards is a South African statutory body that was established in terms of the Standards Act, 1945 and continues to operate in terms of the latest edition of the Standards Act, 2008 The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is a South African statutory body that...
(SABS), the Standardization Administration of China
Standardization Administration of China
The Standardization Administration of China is the Standards organization authorized by the State Council of China to exercise administrative responsibilities by undertaking unified management, supervision and overall coordination of standardization work in China...
(SAC), the Standards Council of Canada
Standards Council of Canada
- About the SCC :The Standards Council of Canada is a federal Crown corporation with the mandate to promote efficient and effective voluntary standardization. Located in Ottawa, Ontario, the Standards Council has a 15-member governing Council and a staff of approximately 90...
(SCC), the Swedish Standards Institute
Swedish Standards Institute
SIS, Swedish Standards Institute, is an independent organization, founded in 1922, with members from the private and public sector.-Activities:...
(SIS), Standards Norway
Standards Norway
Standards Norway is the main standards organization of Norway. It claims responsibility for all standardization areas except for electrotechnical and telecommunication issues. Standards Norway represents the country of Norway in CEN and ISO. Its headquarters are located at Lysaker....
(SN), the Swiss Association for Standardization
Swiss Association for Standardization
The Swiss Association for Standardization is incharge of Switzerland's international cooperation and acceptance in the field of standardization. It is a founder member of both ISO and CEN....
(SNV), Standards New Zealand (SNZ), or Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
(ICONTEC). A national standards body is likely the sole member from that economy in ISO.
NSBs may be either public or private sector organizations, or combinations of the two. For example, the three NSBs of Canada, Mexico and the United States are, respectively, the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the General Bureau of Standards (Dirección General de Normas, DGN), and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). SCC is a Canadian Crown Corporation, DGN is a governmental agency within the Mexican Ministry of Economy, and ANSI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with members from both the private and public sectors. The National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology , known between 1901 and 1988 as the National Bureau of Standards , is a measurement standards laboratory, otherwise known as a National Metrological Institute , which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce...
(NIST), the U.S. government's standards agency, cooperates with ANSI under a memorandum of understanding
Memorandum of understanding
A memorandum of understanding is a document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in...
to collaborate on the United States Standards Strategy. The determinates of whether an NSB for a particular economy is a public or private sector body may include the historical and traditional roles that the private sector fills in public affairs in that economy or the development stage of that economy.
Standards developing organizations (SDOs)
Whereas the term national standards body (NSB) is generally used to refer to the one-per-country standardization organization which is that country’s member of the ISOInternational Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...
, the term standards developing organization (SDO) generally refers to the thousands of industry- or sector-based standards organizations which develop and publish industry specific standards. Some economies feature only an NSB with no other SDOs. Large economies like the United States and Japan feature several hundred SDOs, many of which are coordinated by the central NSBs of each country (ANSI and JISC in this case). In some cases, international industry-based SDOs such as the IEEE and the Audio Engineering Society
Audio Engineering Society
Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products for audio, and persons working...
(AES) may have direct liaisons with international standards organizations, having input to international standards without going through a national standards body. SDOs are differentiated from standards setting organizations (SSOs) (see Trends below) in that SDOs may be accredited to develop standards using open and transparent processes.
Scope of work
The developers of technical standards are generally concerned with interface standardInterface standard
In telecommunications, an interface standard is a standard that describes one or more functional characteristics or physical characteristics necessary to allow the exchange of information between two or more systems or pieces of equipment.An...
s, which detail how products interconnect with one another, and safety standards
Safety standards
Safety standards are standards designed to ensure the safety of products, activities or processes, etc. They may be advisory or compulsory and are normally laid down by an advisory or regulatory body that may be either voluntary or statutory...
, which establish characteristics required for a product or process to be safe for the humans, animals and environment. The subject of their work can be narrow or broad. Another area of interest is in defining how the behavior and performance of products is measured and described in data sheets.
Overlapping or competing standards bodies tend to cooperate purposefully, by seeking to define boundaries between the scope of their work, and by operating in a hierarchical fashion in terms of national, regional and international scope; international organizations tend to have as members national organizations; and standards emerging at national level (such as BS 5750
ISO 9000
The ISO 9000 family of standards relates to quality management systems and is designed to help organizations ensure they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders . The standards are published by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, and available through National...
) can be adopted at regional levels (BS 5750 was adopted as EN 29000) and at international levels (BS 5750 was adopted as ISO 9000).
Unless adopted by a government, standards carry no force in law. However, most jurisdictions have truth in advertising
False advertising
False advertising or deceptive advertising is the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid, many governments around the world use regulations to control false, deceptive or...
laws, and ambiguities can be reduced if a company offers a product that is "compliant" with a standard.
Standards development process
When an organization develops standards which may be used openly, it is common to have formal rules published regarding the process. This may include:- Who is allowed to vote and have input on new or revised standards
- What is the formal step-by-step process
- How are bias and commercial interests handled
- How are negative votes or ballots handled
- What type of consensus is required
- etc.
Although it can be a tedious and lengthy process, formal standard setting is essential to developing new technologies. For example, since 1865, the telecommunications industry has depended on the ITU
International Telecommunication Union
The International Telecommunication Union is the specialized agency of the United Nations which is responsible for information and communication technologies...
to establish the telecommunications standards that have been adopted worldwide. The ITU has created numerous telecommunications standards including telegraph specifications, allocation of telephone numbers, interference protection, and protocols for a variety of communications technologies. The standards that are created through standards organizations lead to improved product quality, ensured interoperability of competitors’ products, and they provide a technological baseline for future research and product development. Formal standard setting through standards organizations has numerous benefits for consumers including increased innovation, multiple market participants, reduced production costs, and the efficiency effects of product interchangeability.
Standards distribution and copyright
Since the standards development process costs a great deal of money, time and resources, virtually all but a few standards are distributed on a commercial basis rather than being provided free. A technical library at a university may have copies of technical standards on hand. Major libraries in large cities may also have access to many technical standards.Some users of standards mistakenly assume that all standards are in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
. This assumption is correct only for standards produced by the central government
Central government
A central government also known as a national government, union government and in federal states, the federal government, is the government at the level of the nation-state. The structure of central governments varies from institution to institution...
s whose publications are not amenable to copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
. Any standards produced by non-governmental entities remain the intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
of their developers and are protected, just like any other publication
Publication
To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...
s, by copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
laws and international treaties. However, the intellectual property extends only to the standard itself and not to its use. For instance if a company sells a device that is compliant with a given standard, it is not liable for further payment to the standards organization except in the special case when the organization holds patent rights or some other ownership of the intellectual property described in the standard.
It is, however, liable for any patent infringement by its implementation, just as with any other implementation of technology. The standards organizations give no guarantees that patents relevant to a given standard have been identified. ISO standards draw attention to this in the foreword with a statement like the following: "Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights."
Trends
The ever-quickening pace of technology evolution is now more than ever affecting the way new standards are proposed, developed and implemented.Since traditional, widely respected standards organizations tend to operate at a slower pace than technology evolves, many standards they develop are becoming less relevant because of the inability of their developers to keep abreast with the technological innovation. As a result, a new class of standards setters appeared on the standardization
Standardization
Standardization is the process of developing and implementing technical standards.The goals of standardization can be to help with independence of single suppliers , compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality....
arena: the industry consortia or standards setting organizations (SSOs). Despite having limited financial resources, some of them enjoy truly international acceptance. One example is the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
(W3C), whose standards for HTML
HTML
HyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
, CSS
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
, and XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
are used universally throughout the world. There are also community-driven associations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...
(IETF), a worldwide network of volunteers who collaborate to set standards for lower-level software solutions.
Some industry-driven standards development efforts don't even have a formal organizational structure. They are projects funded by large corporations. Among them are the OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
, a Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
-sponsored international community of volunteers working on an open-standard
Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....
software that aims to compete with Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a non-free commercial office suite of inter-related desktop applications, servers and services for the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, introduced by Microsoft in August 1, 1989. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of...
, and two commercial groups competing fiercely with each other to develop an industry-wide standard for high-density optical storage
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
.
See also
- Coordination gameCoordination gameIn game theory, coordination games are a class of games with multiple pure strategy Nash equilibria in which players choose the same or corresponding strategies...
- List of technical standard organisations
- Technical standard
- Transport standards organisationsTransport standards organisationsTransportation systems are inherently distributed systems with complex information requirements. Robust modern standards for transportation data are important for the safe and efficient operation of transportation systems...
- Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms
- AutocracyAutocracyAn autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...
External links
- NIST: Additional Standard Resources.
- CEN: Survey of Fora & Consortia - Edition 14 - October 2008 – Alphabetical List of Standards-related Fora and Consortia.
- CEN: ICT Standards Consortia – background information on the above list.
- Kavi: standards collaboration software - used by standards and technical committees.