It appears that Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> said: >If I have this right (and Scott Bradner will probably correct me if >I'm wrong), the basic rules in RFC2026 section 7.1.1 recognize the reality >that some open standards are essential and unavoidable references which >are not available free of charge to the general public. > >To be clear, the phrase "open standard" in that section doesn't >mean "free of charge". (Long essay on what it *does* mean elided.) As I am sure you are aware, our model of giving away copies of our standards for free used to be extremely unusual, and is still far from universal. Historically, SDOs like ANSI and ISO got a lot of their funding from selling paper copies of their standards. I have a bunch of paper ANSI standards that I bought a long time ago, at their office in Times Square and paid with a paper check. R's. John PS: It probably would be best not to inquire too closely about the status of RFC 20.
