Archive-name: standards-faq
Last-modified: $Date: 93/11/04 19:42:06 $
Version: $Revision: 1.11 $
Frequently Asked Questions about International Standards with Answers
---------------------------------------------------------------------
This text is a monthly posting to the USENET groups comp.protocols.iso,
comp.std.misc and comp.std.internat. Its purpose is to give answers to
some of the questions appearing most often in these groups and to
collect interesting information about standards that appeared in USENET
discussions.
If you have a suggestion how this text might be improved or have a text
that you would like to be added, please send it to Markus Kuhn
<mskuhn@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>. Contributions, that I can
simply copy into the text are especially welcome. If you can't send
e-mail, you can also send documents or disks/tapes with material relevant
to the FAQ or the ftp archive (ftp.uni-erlangen.de:pub/doc/ISO/)
to Markus Kuhn, Schlehenweg 9, D-91080 Uttenreuth, Germany.
This FAQ is crossposted to news.answers and won't expire there on
well-managed news systems until the next version has been posted. As a
consequence of being crossposted to news.answers, this text will also
be automatically archived on many FAQ servers all over the world
(e.g., look with anonymous ftp at rtfm.mit.edu in directory
/pub/usenet/news.answers). You'll also find there many other answers
to frequently asked questions.
This FAQ is perhaps one of the first that uses an 8-bit character set
on USENET, because there are many non-ASCII characters necessary for a
correct ISO member address list. Nearly the full USENET is 8-bit
transparent, and the character set is announced in the message header
as defined in RFC 1341. If you can't see the right characters then
check your environment (fonts, stty settings, newsreader options,
code pages, ...), because the character set ISO 8859-1 is available on
many computers, but often simply not activated. A few test characters are
j=e+^, 5=greek mu, )=copyright sign and ==fraction 1/2. If you see
j, 5, ) and = instead, then the highest bit has been stripped off.
The portable program iso2asc.c that you'll find with anonymous ftp on
ftp.uni-erlangen.de in pub/doc/ISO/english/ converts ISO 8859-1
text files to 7-bit US-ASCII and to IBM PC character set if you
can't display these characters directly.
Don't be angry if anything in this text is incorrect. As with all
information exchanged on USENET, you only get what you pay for and the
current author isn't paid a single pfennig for this FAQ. Better mail
me the correction!
I hope you enjoy it ...
Markus
Contents
--------
What are ISO, ITU, CCITT, ANSI, ...?
Why can't I ftp ISO standards?
! Where can I get standard documents?
How can I get in contact with the committees?
Where can I ftp CCITT recommendations?
! Which Internet resources provide information about standards?
What's the meaning of CD, DIS, IS?
ISO standards relevant to computing
ISO standards of general relevance
Some ITU-T/CCITT recommendations
ISO paper sizes
What is ISO 9000?
What's the address of my national standards body?
! References
A '+' in the first column marks a topic that has been added since this
FAQ was last posted the last time and a '!' marks a change. Trivial
typographic changes are not marked.
What are ISO, ITU, CCITT, ANSI, ...?
------------------------------------
Many countries have national standards bodies where experts from
industry and universities develop standards for all kinds of
engineering problems. Among them are, for instance,
ANSI American National Standards Institute USA
DIN Deutsches Institut fuer Normung Germany
BSI British Standards Institution United Kingdom
AFNOR Association francaise de normalisation France
UNI Ente Nazionale Italiano di Unificazione Italy
NNI Nederlands Normalisatie-instituut Netherlands
SAA Standards Australia Australia
SANZ Standards Association of New Zealand New Zealand
NSF Norges Standardiseringsforbund Norway
DS Dansk Standard Denmark
and about 80 others.
The International Organization for Standardization, ISO, in Geneva is
the head organization of all these national standardization bodies.
Together with the International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC, ISO
concentrates its efforts on harmonizing national standards all over the
world. The results of these activities are published as ISO standards.
Among them are, for instance, the metric system of units, international
stationery sizes, all kinds of bolt nuts, rules for technical drawings,
electrical connectors, security regulations, computer protocols, file
formats, bicycle components, ID cards, programming languages,
International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN), ... Over 10,000 ISO
standards have been published so far and you surely get in contact with
a lot of things each day that conform to ISO standards you never heard
of. By the way, "ISO" is not an acronym for the organization in any
language. It's a wordplay based on the English initials and the
Greek-derived prefix "iso-" meaning "same".
Within ISO, ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) deals with
information technology.
The International Telecommunication Union, ITU, is the United Nations
specialized agency dealing with telecommunications. At present there
are 164 member countries. One of its previous bodies was the
International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee, CCITT,
which is now after an organizational reorganization of ITU called
ITU-T (Telecommunication Standardization Sector). A Plenary Assembly
of the CCITT/ITU-T, which takes place every few years, draws up a list
of 'Questions' about possible improvements in international electronic
communication. In Study Groups, experts from different countries
develop 'Recommendations' which are published after they have been
adopted. Especially relevant to computing are the ITU-T V series of
recommendations on modems (e.g. V.32, V.42), the X series on data
networks and OSI (e.g. X.25, X.400), the I and Q series that define
ISDN, the Z series that defines specification and programming
languages (SDL, CHILL), the T series on text communication (teletex,
fax, videotext, ODA) and the H series on digital sound and video
encoding. The previous CCIR (International Radio Consultative
Committee and the IFBR (International Frequency Registration Board)
are now called ITU-R (Radiocommunication Sector). The previous BDT
(Telecommunications Development Buereau) is know called ITU-D.
Since 1961, the European Computer Manufacturers Association, ECMA, has
been a forum for data processing experts where agreements have been
prepared and submitted for standardization to ISO, ITU and other
standards organizations.
Why can't I ftp ISO standards?
------------------------------
ISO standard documents are copyrighted by ISO, and their price is much
higher than the costs for printing and shipping the papers. This is
because the expenses of running ISO are covered completely by selling
the standards. ISO has no other source of money for its operation.
Consequently, ISO standards are NOT available as public domain
documents to Internet users.
Many people feel that this is a great disadvantage and ISO is at the
moment examining other methods of distributing the documents (e.g.
CD-ROM, magnetic tapes and online access) but the odds are very low
that ISO standards will become freely redistributable files like
Internet RFCs in the near future (i.e. this decade).
BTW: The costs of actually developing standards is borne by the
thousands of organizations which pay for the time and travel expenses
of the delegates to national and international level meetings.
By a liaison contribution from ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 to the Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), a very few OSI standards (e.g. ISO 8073, ISO
8473, ISO 9542, ISO 10589) ARE available as PostScript files with ftp
from merit.edu in directory pub/iso as files clnp.ps, esis.ps, isis.ps
and idrp.ps.
Where can I get standard documents?
-----------------------------------
ISO standards are sold by the national standards body members (e.g.
ANSI, DIN, ...), by special companies, and by the ISO General
Secretary in Geneva. The standard way to order standards is to contact
your national standards body (check the list in the chapter 'What's
the address of my national standards body?'). If you want to get the
standards directly from ISO, you may order them from
ISO Sales
Case Postale 56
CH-1211 Geneve 20
Switzerland
E-mail: sales@isocs.iso.ch
ISO accepts VISA and American Express. They require the card number,
its expiry date, and an authorizing signature. Some people prefer to
order their standards directly from ISO in Geneva, because some
national member bodies (e.g. ANSI) reprint ISO standards locally, use
cheaper paper and charge more for ISO standards then the headquarters.
ISO publishes an 'ISO Bulletin' with information about current
standardization activities and articles about various standards. It
lists all the ISO standards published or withdrawn, the DISs
circulated, the CDs registered, etc. It also has a calendar of all
upcoming ISO meetings. You can get it from your national standards body
or from the General Secretary in Geneva. You may get more information
on this from
International Organization
for Standardization
Promotion and Press Department
Case Postale 56
CH-1211 Geneve 20
Switzerland
ISO publishes an annual 'ISO Catalogue' which lists all ISO standards
currently in force and other ISO publications (e.g. guides and
standards handbooks) with a price code. It contains an entry like
ISO 4074-2:1980 Rubber condoms--
Part 2: Determination of length
Ed. 1 2 p. Code A TC 157
Preservatifs masculins en caoutchouc--
Partie 2: Determination de la longueur
for each ISO standard in both English and French and a few other lists.
You have to ask your national standards body how much you have to pay
them for a standard with price code A (e.g. 20 Swiss francs in
Switzerland and 27.10 DM in Germany). The price depends on the number
of pages of the document. Code A means 1 or 2 pages. :-(
You can order all CCITT recommendations from
International Telecommunication Union
General Secretariat - Sales Section
Place des Nations
CH-1211 Geneve 20
Switzerland
There you can also get a free ITU List of Publications. The 1988 series
of recommendations has been published as the 'Blue Book' (consisting of
Volumes each dealing with a specific topic and bound as "Fascicles" of
a few hundred pages each) which fills about 16,000 pages or a whole
shelf. Not all of the Blue Book volumes are about OSI, the rest deals
with the phone, ISDN, telex and teletex nets, fax protocols,
international tariffs, etc. In the past, CCITT recommendations have
been published in a four year cycle. These publications are identified
by the color of their binding: 1960 red, 1964 blue, 1968 white, 1972
green, 1976 orange, 1980 yellow, 1984 red and 1988 blue. The 1992 White
Book will be the last four year collection of all recommendations.
After this, recommendations will be published separately.
An ITU document ordering form may be retrieved from the ITUDOC server
(see below).
The CCITT 1988 Blue Books are also available from:
United Nations Bookshop
General Assembly Building
Room: G.A. 32 B
New York, NY 10017
USA
phone +1 212 963-7680
(800) 553-3210 (USA only, except NY)
fax +1 212 963-4910
Visa or Mastercard are accepted over $15.00.
$2 per book for shipping/handling.
UPS over 5 books is free of charge.
E.g. the fascicle with X.400-X.420 costs $68.70.
All ECMA standards are free and can be ordered at no cost from
European Computer
Manufacturers Association
114 Rue du Rhone
CH-1204 Geneva
Switzerland
phone +41 22 7353634
fax +41 22 7865231
telex 413237
The address of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute is:
ETSI
F-06921 Sophia Antipolis CEDEX
France
phone +33 92 94 42 00
fax +33 93 65 47 16
The address of the Conference of European Posts and Telecommunications
Administrations, CEPT, is
CEPT Liaison Office
Seilerstrasse 22
CH-3008 Bern
Switzerland
phone +41 31 62 20 81
fax +41 31 62 20 78
Their documents are called "Norme Europeene de Telecommunication", NET,
and they allow you to test terminal equipment one for all of the EC.
CEPT is covered by EEC Directive 86/361.
The address of the ANSI sales department is:
ANSI
Attention: Customer Service
11 West 42nd St.
New York, NY 10036
USA
phone +1 212 642-4900
DIN, ISO and other standards are sold in Germany by
Beuth Verlag GmbH
D-10772 Berlin
Germany
phone +49 30 2601-0
fax +49 30 2601-1231
telex 183622 bvb d
teletex 302107 bvb awg
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) also
publishes standards. They can be ordered by email from the IEEE
Computer Society Press:
Send an email message to <cs.books@compmail.com> and include your
name, IEEE membership number, shipping address, phone number,
publication title, catalog number and price.
Payment accepted by credit card or purchase order. Credit card
orders must include: card number, expiration date and your name
as it appears on the card. Purchase orders must include: purchase
order number, name of purchasing organization, your name, phone
number and shipping address.
For several years the US company OMNICOM published a newsletter about
OSI development and distributed copies of ISO standards. Document
distribution for OMNICOM (which is out of business) has been taken over
by Phillips Business Information. The phone number (800) OMNICOM still
works, but is answered by Phillips.
Phillips Business Information
7811 Montrose Rd
Potomac, MD 20854.
phone +1 301 424-3338
(800) OMNICOM
fax +1 301 309-3847
It is highly recommended to compare prices before ordering standards!
How can I get in contact with the committees?
---------------------------------------------
The standard way is to contact the members of your national standards
body. Some of these people will also serve as your country's
representatives to the international organizations.
Only a very few experts active within ISO and CCITT are regularly reading
USENET but most are reachable with Internet mail.
The editor of the new ASN.1 encoding rules standard (ISO 8825) is
Bancroft Scott <baos@oss.oss.com>
The most active participants in the X.gc group working on a news
extension for the X.400 electronic mail protocols similar to USENET are
Jacob Palme, Stockholm University <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
Hiromiki Moriyama <moriyama@nttpro.ntt.jp>
Murray Turoff, New Jersey Inst. of Technology <murray@eies2.njit.edu>
Steve Benford, Nottingham University <sdb@Cs.Nott.AC.UK>
ECMA has email access and the secretary-general can be reached with
<jan.van-den-beld@ecma.ch>.
ISO also has email access. Two known addresses are
Michael Smith <smith@isocs.iso.ch>
Jacques Chabot <chabot@isocs.iso.ch>
IEC also is up on Email and is accessable from Internet through
a bridge (that's sometimes down). One address is e.g.:
Jack Sheldon <jack.sheldon@iecmhs.iec.inet.ch>
Where can I ftp CCITT recommendations?
--------------------------------------
ITU now operates a public document store (ITUDOC). It can be reached
as a mail server and with an interactive telnet/X.29/modem interface
(TIES). Ftp and gopher access are planned.
The mail server is an X.400 "robot" mailbox at ITU headquarters in
Geneva. Its address is:
X.400: S=itudoc; P=itu; A=archom; C=ch
Internet: itudoc@itu.arcom.ch
You can send it messages like
HELP
LIST
LIST ITU-T
LIST ITU-T/REC
GET 1449
At the moment, ITUDOC offers short summaries of ITU recommendations
and full text versions of a growing number of documents in various
formats (Word for Windows, Postscript, ASCII). The project
coordinator for Teledoc is Robert Shaw <shaw@itu.archom.ch>.
With
GET 2798
you'll receive a "List of CCITT Recommendations currently in force"
(about 80 pages).
There is also interactive access to ITUDOC and other ITU information
services possible (TIES). The telnet addresses are
ties.itu.ch (156.106.4.75)
chi.itu.ch (156.106.4.16)
Login as GUEST or ANONYMOUS. The X.25 address is #2284681 11112 and
Modem dial-up access is possible with the phone number +41 22 733 7575
(300 to 9600 bps, 8 data bits, no parity, V.42, V.42bis, MNP support).
The Internet address of the ITU gopher server is info.itu.ch.
There was an experimental ftp server for CCITT recommendations a few
years ago but this service was shut down in the end of 1991 and the
files it provided weren't very high quality (incomplete, missing
graphics and tables). Better use the new official documents from ITUDOC.
Which Internet resources provide information about standards?
-------------------------------------------------------------
The author of this FAQ maintains an archive where information about
ISO standards is collected at anonymous ftp server ftp.uni-erlangen.de
in pub/doc/ISO/english. Contact <mskuhn@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
if you would like to contribute anything. (A few German texts are
available in pub/doc/ISO/deutsch.)
The RFCs are ftpable from nic.ddn.mil, nisc.sri.com, nnsc.nsf.net and
from many other sites all over the world.
For information about POSIX, the ISO and IEEE standard for UNIX
compatible operating systems, look at the file ~ftp/usenet/comp.std.unix
on ftp.uu.net.
Other ftp locations with information about OSI and other ISO standards
are:
address directory content
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
osi.ncsl.nist.gov * GOSIP stuff
ftp.uu.net networking/osi ISODE
networking/x25 X.25 software
nic.ddn.mil protocols DoD and GOSIP related stuff
rfc RFC Repository
cs.ucl.ac.uk src ISODE, PP, OSIMIS, ...
osi-ds Internet X.500 documents
ietf-osi-oda Internet ODA documents
aun.uninett.no ietf/mhs-ds X.500 based routing drafts
ftp.ifi.uio.no pub/SGML SGML/HyTime related things
dkuug.dk i18n internationalisation standards
ftp.ripe.net ripe/docs/iso3166-codes ISO Country Codes
isode.com * ISODE Consortium documents
merit.edu pub/iso few ISO standards (CLNP etc.)
unicode.org pub Unicode/ISO 10646 material
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Z39.50 ISO SR/Z39.50 drafts
ftp.cme.nist.gov pub/step ISO 10303/STEP archive
The USENET group comp.protocols.iso.x400 has been created for
discussions about the X.400 OSI e-mail protocol suite. Harald Tveit
Alvestrand <harald.t.alvestrand@delab.sintef.no> is posting an X.400
FAQ and product list monthly there and Jacob Palme <jpalme@dsv.su.se>
posts his reports from the ITU/ISO X.400 study group meetings in the
same group. The reports from Jacob Palme about X.400, the official
X.400 implementor's guide and various research reports are available
with gopher from dsv.su.se.
Information about ITU is available with gopher from info.itu.ch.
A hypertext version of IEC 417, a standard about graphical symbols on
equipment, is available in the WorldWideWeb with the URL
http://www.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/iec417/index.html
Use e.g. the Xmosaic WWW browser from NCSA in order to read this
HTML hypertext document.
You can get a list of OSI standards with anonymous ftp from merit.edu.
Get the file pub/iso/OSIstatus.9.92.ps or the latest version of it.
There is a USENET group comp.text.sgml for discussions about SGML,
DSSSL, HyTime, etc. Articles posted there are archived on ftp.ifi.uio.no.
A list of all ISO 10646 characters with their names hacked in by
Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> is available with anonymous ftp from
ftp.ifi.uio.no in the directory cd /pub/SGML/CHARSET. Another list
will be published soon in unicode.com.
CMIP Run is a newsletter dedicated to popularizing and explaining the
various network and systems management technologies, especially OSI CMIP.
CMIP Run is available via anonymous ftp in postscript from 192.35.236.4
in pub/cmip_run.
A few ISO standards are available freely as Postscript files with ftp
from merit.edu in pub/iso as clnp.ps, esis.ps, isis.ps and idrp.ps. These
are OSI connectionless network layer standards.
If you can't get files with ftp, you might want to use one of the
ftpmail servers (e.g. ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com or ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk).
For detailed instructions send them a message with "help" in the body.
What's the meaning of CD, DIS, IS?
----------------------------------
[Posted by Brad Smith <smithb@durer.cme.nist.gov>:]
Replies to an earlier posting of mine indicated a lack of familiarity
with current ISO procedures for developing and gaining consensus on
international standards. Here are some notes to update you.
The 1989 revision of the ISO/IEC Directives specify the accepted
procedure for developing and approving International Standards. This
is a complicated process with many activities and critical milestones
so if you do any standards work, you will probably want to get a copy
of the document for reference.
THE ISO PROCESS:
The Directives give a set of procedures for managing the work of a
committee which define five stages of document approval:
The Proposal Stage
Voting members ballot on the creation of a new
standards project.
The Preparatory Stage
Project Leader manages the development of a Working
Draft.
The Committee Stage
Consensus is achieved on a Committee Draft.
The Approval Stage
National bodies vote on a Draft International
Standard.
The Publication Stage
ISO publishes the International Standard.
PROPOSAL STAGE:
The Proposal stage begins with a suggestion for a new area of
standardization activity (see [ISO1] - clause 2.2, page 17). The
suggestion is documented on an ISO New Work Item Proposal form and is
sent out by the committee's Secretariat to all participating and
observing members of the committee, to all liaison organizations, and
to other national bodies of ISO. A three-month voting period is
prescribed. All voting members have an obligation to reply.
Approval requires a simple majority vote and a commitment by at least
five national bodies to actively participate. Projects can be placed
within an existing Working Group (WG), or a new WG can be created to
act as a focus for technical development work.
The Proposal stage ends when a New Work Item is approved, is registered
with the ISO, and is included in the list of projects within the
program of work of the SC-4 Committee.
PREPARATORY STAGE:
The Preparatory stage of ISO standards development covers the creation
of a working draft of the ultimate standard (see [ISO1] - clause 2.3,
page 17). The work is performed by experts from participating
countries organized into working groups and advisory groups under the
guidance of a convener, and further subdivided into project areas each
under the direction of a Project Leader (see [ISO1] - clause 2.1.6,
page 16).
Different committees may decide on different procedures to govern the
development of working drafts of their standards. In our committee,
Working Group conveners have been encouraged to subdivide the technical
work into logical tasks each under the direction of a Project Leader.
Project Leaders report to the Convener of their parent Working Group.
The Working Group convener usually serves as a Project Leader (see
[ISO1] - clause 2.3.3, page 17) but is additionally responsible for
coordinating any other Project Leaders in the WG as well.
As technical work is completed by a WG, it is documented in a working
draft of an ISO standard and begins the process of consensus-building
and approval. Generally, each document has an editor who has custody
of the electronic form of the document, but the project leader has the
overall responsibility for coordinating the efforts necessary to gain
approval of the draft as an international standard.
The ISO Directives do not give details of the process for developing a
working draft within the hierarchy of projects, WGs, and advisory
groups. That is left for each SC to establish for itself. Our
committee has a detailed set of procedures which are available if
anyone wants to see them.
The Preparatory stage for any one Part ends when a working draft of
that Part has been approved by the Project Management Advisory Group.
It is at that time given to the Secretariat of SC-4 who formally
registers the Part as a Committee Draft with ISO (see [ISO1] - clause
2.3.8, page 18).
COMMITTEE STAGE:
The Committee stage begins with the circulation of the document in the
form of a Committee Draft (CD) for formal balloting (see [ISO1], clause
2.4.1, page 18 and SC4 Res# 73). The ballot is sent out by the
committee Secretariat to all participating and observing countries of
SC-4 and also to Class A Liaison organizations. All recipients are
asked for comments on the CD. Voting members are asked to vote on the
acceptance of the CD for registration as a Draft International
Standard. All voting members have an obligation to reply. A three
month voting period is prescribed. Ballot comments are collected and
summarized by the Secretariat.
A team consisting of the Secretariat, the committee Chairman, the
affected Conveners, and the affected Project Leaders review the ballot
comments to determine the degree of consensus obtained. Based on the
evaluation, a decision is made whether to
a) discuss the CD and comments at the next meeting,
b) register the CD as a Draft International Standard, or
c) ask that a revised CD be prepared for circulation
If at least three voting members of SC-4 disagree with proposal b) or
c) of the Secretariat, the CD will be put on the agenda for discussion
at the next committee meeting.
Failure to attain consensus approval of a Part will trigger
determination c) above and thus cause the document to be returned to
the Working Group level for the preparation of a revised Committee
Draft.
It should be noted that both an English and a French text must be
available for each Part during the Approval stage which comes next.
This translation should be instigated at an early date to allow time
for a quality effort.
The Committee stage ends for a CD when the Part is accepted by
committee ballot. The document is then given to the Secretariat who
formally submits the English and French versions to ISO for
registration of the Part as a Draft International Standard (see [ISO1]
- clause 2.4.7, page 19).
APPROVAL STAGE:
The Approval Stage begins with circulation of the English and French
versions of the Part in the form of a Draft International Standard
(DIS) for formal balloting (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.1, page 19). The
ballot is sent out by ISO Central Secretariat to all national bodies of
ISO (our committee members plus others). Recipients are asked to vote
on the approval of the DIS as an International Standard. All national
bodies have an obligation to reply. A six-month voting period is
prescribed. Ballot comments are collected by ISO and are returned to
our committee.
The DIS is approved if a two-thirds majority of votes cast by voting
members of our committee are in favor and if not more than 25% of the
total number of votes cast are negative. Abstentions are excluded when
counting votes (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.3, page 20). If so approved,
the committee Chairman, in cooperation with the Secretariat, and in
consultation with the ISO Chief Executive Officer makes a decision
whether the document should be published without change or whether an
amendment should be drafted to reflect persuasive technical comments
received (see [ISO1] - clause 2.5.4, page 20). If an amendment is
drafted, it requires a two-month vote as above.
If the DIS is not approved, the Committee Chairman, in cooperation with
the Secretariat (and, if necessary the Project Leader and the affected
WG Conveners), and in consultation with the ISO Chief Executive
Officer, makes a decision whether to prepare a new DIS for a two-month
vote or to refer the document back to committee for further work (see
[ISO1] - clause 2.5.6, page 20).
The Approval stage ends with the decision of the committee Chairman to
publish. The Secretariat then prepares the final manuscript and sends
it to ISO.
PUBLICATION STAGE:
The ISO Chief Executive Officer does final preparation of the Foreword
and sends the proof back to the SC-4 Secretariat for review. Further
editorial or technical amendments are unacceptable at this stage.
The Publication stage ends with the release of the document as an
International Standard.
[FAQ author's note: The reference [ISO1] hasn't been resolved in Brad
Smith's original posting, but, according to the ISO Catalogue, the
complete ISO ceremony of creating a standard is defined in:
IEC/ISO Directives -- Part 1,
Procedures for the technical work,
1989, 140p., ISBN 92-67-10150-1.
IEC/ISO Directives -- Part 2,
Methodology for the development of International Standards,
1989, 62p., ISBN 92-67-10149-8.
IEC/ISO Directives -- Part 3,
Drafting and presentation of International Standards,
1989, 2nd ed., 82 p., bilingual, ISBN 92-67-01055-7.
Harald Alvestrand wrote me, that there is also something called a "CD
ballot" that is needed to get a document from "expert contribution"
status to "CD" status, and that there are exceptions to the "French
required" rules. He has one DIS that says on the cover: "In accordance
with the provisions of Council Resolution 21/1986 this DIS is submitted
in the English language only"]
Another nice explanation :-) has been posted by Chad Fogg <cfogg@ole.cdac.com>:
Here is the evolutionary chart of ISO standards:
1. Barroom witticism ("NI" or "Napkin Item")
2. New proposal ("NP" or "Need Permission")
3. Working Draft ("WD" or "We were Drunk")
4. Committee Draft ("CD" or "Calendar Deadlock")
5. Draft International Standard ("DIS" or "Doesn't Include Substance")
6. International Standard ("IS" or "Induced patent Statements")
ISO standards relevant to computing
-----------------------------------
A summary of ISO and CCITT standards relevant to OSI (Open System
Interconnection) protocols is part of the osi-protocols FAQ which is
posted to comp.protocols.iso.
ISO 646 Good ol' 7-bit ASCII with national variants
IEC 824 Terminology related to microprocessors
ISO 2022 ESC sequences for switching between various character sets
ISO 2382 Information technology -- Vocabulary
ISO 3166 Codes for the representation of names of countries.
This standard defines a 2-letter, a 3-letter and a numeric
code for each country on this planet. E.g. US/USA/840=
United States, DE/DEU/276=Germany, GB/GBR/826=United
Kingdom, FR/FRA/250=France, ...)
The 2-letter codes are well known in the Internet as top-level
domain names. The 3-letter versions are often used at
international sports events.
ISO 4217 Codes for the representation of currencies and funds
ISO 5218 Representation of human sexes
Sex is represented by a one-character language independent
numerical code: 0=not known, 1=male, 2=female, 9=not
specified. The standard also specifies, that "no significance
is to be placed on the fact that 'Male' is coded '1' and
'Female' is coded '2'. This standard was developed based
upon predominant practice of the countries involved and does
not convey any meaning of importance, ranking or any other
basis that could imply discrimination." :-)
ISO 6429 ASCII Control Codes, also known as VT100/VT320/ANSI escape
sequences
ISO 6709 Representation of latitude, longitude and altitude of
geographic positions
ISO 8601 Representation of dates and times.
This standard defines a lot of details of the calendar.
E.g. the ISO definition of the week numbers is that the
first day (day number 1) of a week is Monday and that the
first week in a year (week number 1) is the week that includes
the first Thursday in January, i.e. the first week that has at
least four days in January. Other definitions are, e.g., that
hours of a day are counted from 0 to 24 and that the
international notation of dates is the Bigendian format
year-month-day, e.g. 1993-04-17 and that for time is 20:36:04.
There are also string formats for computer applications
specified that have to represent date and time in files
and protocol packets. (See ftp.uni-erlangen.de:pub/doc/ISO/
english/ISO8601.ps.Z for a very detailed summary.)
ISO 8632 Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM). This standard defines
a file format for 2D vector graphics. Part 1 defines the
graphic elements (lines, filled polygons, text, colors, ...)
that may appear in a CGM and the other parts define 3 different
encodings for these graphic elements:
Character encoding: compact ASCII encoding, useful if
CGM files have to be transported
over not binary-transparent channels
(e.g. e-mail, character set converter)
Binary encoding: this is the most often implemented
CGM encoding, because it is both
efficient and easy to implement.
Clear text encoding: a human readable textual encoding.
This standard format might be exactly what you need if you
want to store pictures that can be drawn by the usual graphic
library functions (move, line, set_color, set_linestyle, ...)
in an resolution-independend way. The format is simple and
easy to understand. The new 1992 revision of the CGM standard
contains many additional graphic elements (splines, rendering
options for ends and joins of thick lines, several color
models, high quality fonts, grouping of graphical elements, ...)
that make this format capable of storing images with the quality
you are used to get from Postscript, Corel Draw, Framemaker,
etc. The main difference between CGM and Postscript is that
Postscript is a full programming language while CGM is just
a simple list of graphical elements which makes CGM suitable
for reediting.
ISO 8652 The Ada programming language
ISO 8859 Several 8-bit ASCII extensions. Especially ISO 8859-1, the
"Latin alphabet No. 1" has become widely implemented and may
already be seen as the de-facto standard ASCII replacement.
ISO 8859-1 west European languages (Latin-1)
ISO 8859-2 east European languages (Latin-2)
ISO 8859-3 other Latin languages (Latin-3)
ISO 8859-4 north European languages (Latin-4)
ISO 8859-5 Latin/Cyrillic
ISO 8859-6 Latin/Arabic
ISO 8859-7 Latin/Greek
ISO 8859-8 Latin/Hebrew
ISO 8859-9 Latin-1 modification for Turkey (Latin-5)
ISO 8859-10 Baltic countries (under preparation)
ISO 8879 Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), a format
for storing documents together with their logical structure
and perhaps layout information in a standardized way.
(see also USENET group comp.text.sgml)
ISO 9127 User documentation and cover information for consumer
software packages
ISO 9592 Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics Interface
(PHIGS)
ISO 9593 PHIGS Language Bindings (Fortran, Pascal, Ada, C)
ISO 9541 Font and Character Information Interchange
ISO 9636 Graphical device interfaces
ISO 9660 CD-ROM volume and file structure
ISO 9899 The C programming language
ISO 9945 UNIX style system calls and shell commands (POSIX)
ISO 10646 A 32-bit character set called UCS containing (nearly) all
characters used on this planet that will hopefully solve
most of the character set troubles with computers one day.
Today only the 16-bit subset UCS-2 has been defined, also
known as 'Unicode' that is expected to become pretty
popular soon and will be supported by Windows NT, Plan 9
and other new operating systems.
ISO 10744 HyTime -- A hypertext/multimedia extension to SGML
ISO standards of general relevance
----------------------------------
(Of course, there are a more then 10,000 of them, so this list will
always contain only a few of the more well-known international
standards.)
ISO 3 Preferred numbers
Especially in engineering applications, where a designer often
has to choose an arbitrary dimension (e.g. the length of a
part) within a range, it might be useful to have some
'preferred numbers' defined that should be preferred in these
situations. These are 1, 1.6, 2.5, 4, 6.3 which might be
multiplied or divided by 10 as often as necessary and should be
used together with SI (metric) units. The above simplest
set of preferred numbers devides the range from 1 to 10 with 5
numbers. There are also supersets with more numbers defined, e.g.
1, 1.25, 1.6, 2, 2.5, 3.15, 4, 5, 6.3, 8. This standard is perhaps
less relevant in computer science, where programmers traditionally
use the powers of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ...) multiplied by 1, 3 or
5 as 'preferred numbers'.
ISO 9 Transliteration of Slavic Cyrillic characters into
Latin characters
ISO 31 The international system of physical quantities,
units and symbols (the "metric system")
ISO 216 Paper sizes -- A and B series
ISO 233 Transliteration of Arabic characters into Latin
characters
ISO 259 Transliteration of Hebrew characters into Latin
characters
ISO 269 Correspondence envelope sizes
ISO 639 Code for the representation of names of languages
(e.g., en=English, de=German, and several hundred others)
ISO 838 Paper holes for general filing purposes
ISO 1000 SI units and recommendations for the use of their
multiples and of certain other units.
ISO 2108 International standard book number (ISBN)
ISO 3602 Romanization of Japanese (kana script)
ISO 5966 Presentation of scientific and technical reports
ISO 7000 Graphical symbols for use on equipment
ISO 7001 Public information symbols
ISO 7098 Romanization of Chinese
ISO 7144 Presentation of theses and similar documents
ISO 9000 Quality management and quality assurance (also ISO 9001 -
ISO 9004).
ISO 11172 Digital video/audio compression and encoding (MPEG)
[... to be continued ...]
Some ITU-T/CCITT recommendations
--------------------------------
E.123 A notation for international telephone numbers (a '+'
followed by the country code, followed by a space, ...)
E.163 The international telephone numbering plan defining the
structure of the phone number system and defining the
country codes (e.g. 1=USA/Canada/etc., 49=Germany, ...).
H.261 Video telephony standard
X.25 An interface to a public or private packet data network
X.3/X.28/ Specification of a device (PAD) that allows to connect
X.29 asynchronous ASCII terminals to X.25 networks. X.3 defines
the parameters that allow to control the PAD operation,
X.28 specifies the command language offered to the terminal
user and X.29 is the protocol used by the PAD over X.25.
V.21 Duplex 300 bits/s modem modulation.
V.22 Duplex 1200 bits/s modem modulation.
V.22bis Duplex 2400 bits/s modem modulation.
V.32 Duplex modem modulation up to 9600 bits/s.
V.32bis Duplex modem modulation up to 14400 bits/s.
V.42 HDLC based error correction protocol for modems.
V.42bis Lempel-Ziv based data compression algorithm for HDLC
protocols.
and many more ...
CCITT is working on a modulation standard that allows bit rates up to
about 28kbit/s. The preliminary name of this draft is V.fast.
See chapter 'Where can I ftp CCITT recommendations' for information
about where to get the full list.
ISO paper sizes
---------------
The paper formats defined by ISO in the A, B and C series are used
today in nearly all countries apart from North America.
The formats have been determined according to the following rules:
- A0 has an area of one square meter.
- The aspect ratio of all members of the A, B and C-series is
sqrt(2) = 1.41421...
- You get the next higher format by cutting the paper in two
equal pieces parallel to the shorter side. This results again in
a 1 : sqrt(2) format (that's the big advantage of this format).
- The size of a B-series paper is the geometric mean between the size of
the corresponding A-series paper and the next bigger A-series paper.
E.g. B1 is between A1 and A0.
- The size of a C-series paper is the geometric mean between the size of
the A-series and B-series paper with the same number.
This means that the following formulas give the dimensions in meters:
Width Height
A-series 2 ^ (- 1/4 - n/2) 2 ^ (1/4 - n/2)
B-series 2 ^ ( - n/2) 2 ^ (1/2 - n/2)
C-series 2 ^ (- 1/8 - n/2) 2 ^ (3/8 - n/2)
Larger sizes have smaller numbers. Sizes larger than those with n = 0
are written as 2 A0 and 4 A0 rather than A(-1) and A(-2).
The following table lists the official definitions of the paper sizes
which are the values from the above formulas rounded more-or-less to
an integral number of millimeters:
4 A0 1682 x 2378
2 A0 1189 x 1682
A0 841 x 1189 B0 1000 x 1414 C0 917 x 1297
A1 594 x 841 B1 707 x 1000 C1 648 x 917
A2 420 x 594 B2 500 x 707 C2 458 x 648
A3 297 x 420 B3 353 x 500 C3 324 x 458
A4 210 x 297 B4 250 x 353 C4 229 x 324
A5 148 x 210 B5 176 x 250 C5 162 x 229
A6 105 x 148 B6 125 x 176 C6 114 x 162
A7 74 x 105 B7 88 x 125 C7 81 x 114
A8 52 x 74 B8 62 x 88 C8 57 x 81
A9 37 x 52 B9 44 x 62 C9 40 x 57
A10 26 x 37 B10 31 x 44 C10 28 x 40
The most popular sizes are perhaps:
A0 technical drawings
A4 letters, magazines, documents
A5 books
C4,C5,C6 envelopes
B4,A3 supported by many copy machines, newspapers
There are also strip formats possible, e.g.
1/3 A4 99 x 210
2/3 A4 198 x 210
1/4 A4 74 x 210
1/8 A4 37 x 210
1/4 A3 105 x 297
1/3 A5 70 x 148
etc.
All these formats are paper end formats, i.e. these are the dimensions
of the paper delivered to the user/reader. Other standards define slightly
bigger paper sizes for applications where the paper will be cut to the
end format later (e.g. after binding).
The ISO DL envelope format has the dimensions 220 x 110 millimeters.
(The values have been copied from DIN 476 (Dec 1976) which is the
German version of the ISO 216 standard).
What is ISO 9000?
-----------------
Q. I've seen recently announcements of several big companies in
newspapers, where they tell their customers that they now conform to
ISO 9000. What is ISO 9000?
A. A standard for the development process of a product.
Q. Why has ISO 9000 been written and what does it mean if a company
claims to conform to ISO 9000 ?
A. I think, it means that the product which carries the ISO 9000
certified mark has undergone a well-defined, well-engineered,
well-monitored design/development/testing/production process. (This in
turn is expected to imply that the product is not a result of some
hap-hazard development and thus is of a superior quality.)
The agency which registers a product as ISO registered expects that the
business produce a "Quality Manual". They verify the manual against the
ISO 9000 standards. Then they verify that the design/development/test
etc. processes closely agree with what is mentioned in the Quality
Manual, recommend corrective actions, if any, and after a few periodic
(at least 6 monthly) assesments certify the product as an ISO 9000
registered product.
Q. A few practical examples?
Basically, it results in "Document everything you do" and "Do what you
have documented". It is expected that there will be a documented
procedure for everything that is done in the design/development/testing
of a product. The ISO inspectors are quite meticulous about these
things. (I heard some of the ISO coordinators relating there
experiences.)
Key changes needed:
o Training of the full time personnel to understand ISO 9000
standards, ISO Audit, etc.
o Alerting all the employees of upcoming ISO audits and having
periodic educational talks on how to work in a ISO framework.
o Slowly changing the work habits of the employees so that: They
do what is documented and the document says exactly what they
are doing.
Key considerations:
o Financial commitment involved in getting ISO registed. (Close to
$20k per product over a 2 year period in external costs + internal
costs in training people work hours lost during the audits (3-5 days
a years) + cost of the QC department). [Figures based on UL's
ISO 9000 registration figures.]
o Will the employees be happily willing to work in this tight
"document everything you do" framework?
Advantages:
o "ISO approved" seems to be a green signal for the European
customers to buy a product.
If ISO 9000 is forseen as a "way to go" for the future in US/World then
it would be a good idea to start early.
[I wish to thank Sandeep Phadke <sandeep@acsc.com>, who attended a
seminar on ISO 9000 recently, for this USENET interview.]
You'll find a more detailed and precise explanation of ISO 9000 with
anonymous ftp in ftp.uni-erlangen.de:pub/doc/ISO/english/ISO-9000-summary.
This is perhaps the most interesting file about ISO 9000 of those that
you may get by sending the lines
GET ISONEWS F02
GET ISONEWS F03
[...]
GET ISONEWS F11
to LISTSERV@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU, a mail server.
What's the address of my national standards body?
-------------------------------------------------
The address of the ISO headquarters is:
International Organization
for Standardization
Case postale 56
1, rue de Varembi
CH-1211 Genhve 20
Switzerland
national (022) 749 01 11 (In correct and complete
Telephone ------------------------------- CCITT E.123 notation :-)
international +41 22 749 01 11
Telefax +41 22 733 34 30
Telex 41 22 05 iso ch
Telegrams isorganiz
And here comes a list of the current 91 member bodies of ISO. According
to ISO regulations, only one organization "most representative of
standardization in its country" is allowed to be ISO member body in
each country. Revisions to the following addresses are announced in the
monthly ISO Bulletin. The author of this FAQ has currently no access to
the ISO Bulletin, so it is up to the better informed reader whether this
list will stay up to date. The addresses in this list are from the
official ISO member list from september 1992 and have been typed in as
an 8-bit ISO 8859-1 Latin 1 file by Inge A. Suhr.
Each Organization with a '*' is a sales agent for ISO publications in
its country. The names of the countries are given in both English and
French (seems to be an old ISO tradition ;-).
TP = Telephone
TF = Telefax
TX = Telex
TG = Telegrams
Albania/Albanie (DSMA)
*Drejtoria e Standardeve dhe e
Mjeteve Martksk nk Ministrink e
Ekonomisk
Bulevardi: Dkshmorkt e Kombit
TIRANA
TF 2 62 55
TX 42 95 koplan ab
TG standardi tirana
Algeria/Algirie (INAPI)
*Institut algirien de normalisation
et de propriiti industrielle
5, rue Abou Hamou Moussa
B.P. 1021 - Centre de tri
ALGER
TP +213 2 63 51 80
TF +213 2 61 09 71
TX 6 64 09 inapi dz
TG inapi-alger
Argentina/Argentine (IRAM)
Instituto Argentino de
Racionalizacisn de Materiales
Chile 1192
1098 BUENOS AIRES
TP +54 1 383 37 51
TF +54 1 383 84 63
TX 2 60 86 iflex ar
Australia/Australie (SAA)
*Standards Association of Australia
P.O. Box 1055,
STRATHFIELD - N.S.W. 2135
TP +61 2 746 47 00
TF +61 2 746 84 50
TX 2 65 14 astan aa
TG austandard north sydney
Austria/Autriche (ON)
*Vsterreichisches
Normungsinstitut
Heinestra_e 38
Postfach 130
A-1021 WIEN
TP +43 1 26 75 35
TF +43 1 26 75 52
TX 11 59 60 norm a
TG austrianorm
Bangladesh (BSTI)
*Bangladesh Standards and
Testing Institution
116-A, Tejgaon Industrial Area
DHAKA-1208
TP +880 2 88 14 62
TG besteye
Belgium/Belgique (IBN)
*Institut belge de normalisation
Av. de la Brabangonne 29
B-1040 BRUXELLES
TP +32 2 734 92 05
TF +32 2 733 42 64
TX 2 38 77 benor b
TG benor
Brazil/Brisil (ABNT)
*Associagco Brasileira de Normas
Ticnicas
Av. 13 de Maio, n: 13-28: andar
Caixa Postal 1680
CEP: 20.003 - RIO DE JANEIRO-RJ
TP +55 21 210 31 22
TF +55 21 532 21 43
TX 213 43 33 abnt br
TG normaticnica rio
Bulgaria/Bulgarie (BDS)
*Comiti de normalisation
certification et mitrologie
auprhs du Conseil des Ministres
21, rue du 6-Septembre
1000 SOFIA
TP +359 2 85 91
TF +359 2 80 14 02
TX 2 25 70 dks bg
TG techprogress
Canada (SCC)
*Standards Council of Canada
45 O'Connor Street, Suite 1200
OTTAWA, ONTARIO
K1P 6N7
TP +1 613 238 32 22
TF +1 613 995 45 64
TX 053 44 03 stancan ott
TG stancan ottawa
Chile/Chili (INN)
Instituto Nacional de Normalizacisn
Matmas Cousiqo 64-6: piso
Casilla 995 - Correo Central
SANTIAGO
TP +56 2 696 81 44
TF +56 2 696 02 47
TG inn
China/Chine (CSBTS)
China State Bureau of Technical
Supervision
4, Zhi Chun Road
Haidian District
P.O. Box 8010
BEIJING
TP +86 1 202 58 35
TF +86 1 203 10 10
TG 1918 beijing
Colombia/Colombie (ICONTEC)
*Instituto Colombiano de Normas
Ticnicas
Carrea 37 No. 52-95, Edificio
ICONTEC
P.O. Box 14237
SANTAFI DE BOGOTA
TP +57 1 222 05 71
TF +57 1 222 14 35
TG icontec
Cuba (NC)
*Comiti Estatal de Normalizacisn
Egido 610 entre Gloria y Apodaca
Zona postal 2
LA HABANA
TF +53 7 62 15 03
TF +53 7 62 76 57
TX 51 22 45 cen cu
TG cen havana
Cyprus/Chypre (CYS)
Cyprus Organization for Standards
and Control of Quality
Ministry of Commerce and Industry
NICOSIA
TP +357 2 30 34 41
TF +357 2 36 61 20
TX 22 83 mincomin cy
TG mincommind nicosia
Czech and Slovak Federal (still?)
Republic/Ripublique fidirative
tchique et slovaque (CSN)
*Federal Office for Standards and
Measurements
Vaclavski namesti 19
113 47 PRAHA 1
TP +42 2 235 21 52
TF +42 2 26 57 95
TX 12 19 48 funm c
TG normalizace
Denmark/Danemark (DS)
*Dansk Standardiseringsraad
Baunegaardsvej 73
DK-2900 HELLERUP
TP +45 39 77 01 01
TF +45 39 77 02 02
TX 11 92 03 ds stand
TG danskstandard
Email ds@itc.dk
Egypt, Arab Republic of/
Igypte, Rip. arabe d' (EOS)
*Egyptian Organization for
Standardization and Quality Control
2 Latin America Street
Garden City
CAIRO
TP +20 2 354 97 20
TF +20 2 355 78 41
TX 9 32 96 eos un
TG tawhid
Ethiopia/Ithiopie (ESA)
*Ethiopian Authority for
Standardization
P.O. Box 2310
ADDIS ABABA
TP +251 1 18 51 06
TX 2 17 25 ethsa et
TG ethiostan
Finland/Finlande (SFS)
*Suomen Standardisoimisliitto SFS
P.O. Box 116
SF-00241 HELSINKI
TP +358 0149 93 31
TF +358 0146 49 25
TX 12 23 03 stand sf
TG finnstandard
France (AFNOR)
*Association frangaise de
normalisation
Tour Europe
Cedex 7
F-92049 PARIS LA DIFENSE
TP +331 42 91 55 55
TF +331 42 91 56 56
TX 61 19 74 afnor f
TG afnor courbevoie
Germany/Allemagne (DIN)
*DIN Deutsches Institut f|r
Normung
Burggrafenstra_e 6
D-10787 BERLIN
TP +49 30 26 01 0
TF +49 30 26 01 12 31
TX 18 42 73 din d
TG deutschnormen berlin
Ghana (GSB)
*Ghana Standards Board
P.O. Box M-245
ACCRA
TP +233 21 66 26 06
TX 25 45 mincom gh
TG stanbord
Greece/Grhce (ELOT)
*Hellenic Organization for
Standardization
313, Acharnon Street
GR-111 45 ATHENS
TP +30 1 201 50 25
TF +30 1 202 07 76
TX 21 96 70 elot gr
TG elotyp-athens
Hungary/Hongrie (MSZH)
*Magyar Szabvany|gyi Hivatal
1450 BUDAPEST 9
Pf.24.
TP +36 1 118 30 11
TF +36 1 118 51 25
TX 22 57 23 norm h
TG normhungaria budapest
India/Inde (BIS)
*Bureau of Indian Standards
Manak Bhavan
9 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg
NEW DEHLI 110002
TP +91 11 331 79 91
TF +91 11 331 40 62
TX 316 58 70 bis in
TG manaksanstha
Indonesia/Indonisie (DSN)
*Dewan Standardisasi
Nasional - DSN
(Standardization Council of Indonesia)
Sasana Widya Sarwono Lt. 5
Jalan Jend. Gatot Subroto 10
JAKARTA 12710
TP +62 21 520 66 74
TF +62 21 520 72 26
TX 6 28 75 pdii ia
TG lipi jakarta
Iran, Islamic Rep. of/
Rip. islamique d' (ISIRI)
*Institute of Standards and
Industrial Research of Iran
Ministry of Industry
P.O. Box 15875-4618
TEHRAN
TP +98 21 89 93 08
TF +98 21 89 53 05
TX 21 27 96 inmi ir
TG standinst
Iraq (COSQC)
Central Organization for
Standardization and Quality Control
Ministry of Planning
P.O. Box 13032
Aljadiria
BAGHDAD
TP +964 1 776 51 80
TF +964 1 776 57 81
TX 21 35 05 cosqc
TG iros baghdad
Ireland/Irlande (NSAI)
*National Standards Authority
of Ireland
Glasnevin
DUBLIN-9
TP +353 1 37 01 01
TF +353 1 36 98 21
TX 3 25 01 iirs ei
TG research, dublin
Iceland/Islande (STRI)
Islandic Council for Standardization
Technological Institute of Iceland
Keldnaholt
IS-112 REYKJAVIK
TP +354 1 68 70 00
TF +354 1 68 74 09
TX 30 20 istech is
Israel/Israkl (SII)
*Standards Institution of Israel
42 Chaim Levanon Street
TEL AVIV 69977
TP +972 3 646 51 54
TF +972 3 641 96 83
TX 3 55 08 siit il
TG standardis
Italy/Italie (UNI)
*Ente Nazionale Italiano di
Unificazione
Via Battistotti Sassi 11
I-20133 MILANO
TP +39 2 70 02 41
TF +39 2 70 10 61 06
TX 31 24 81 uni i
TG unificazione
Jamaica/Jamaoque (JBS)
*Jamaica Bureau of Standards
6 Winchester Road
P.O. Box 113
KINGSTON 10
TP +500 809 926 31 40-6
TF +500 809 921 53 29
TX 22 91 stanbur
TG stanbureau jamaica
Japan/Japon (JISC)
*Japanese Industrial Standards
Committee
c/o Standards Department Agency
of Industrial Science and
Technology
Ministry of International Trade
and Industry
1-3-1, Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku
TOKYO 100
TP +81 3 35 01 92 95/6
TF +81 3 35 80 14 18
TX 02 42 42 45 jsatyo j
TG mitijisc tokyo
For sales information in Japan
also:
Japan Standards Association (JSA)
1-24 Akasaka, 4-Chome, Minato-Ku
TOKYO 107
Japan/Japon
TP +81 3 35 82 89 68
TF +81 3 35 86 20 14
Kenya (KEBS)
*Kenya Bureau of Standards
Off Mombassa Road
Behind Belle Vue Cinema
P.O. Box 54974
NAIROBI
TP +254 2 50 22 10/19
TX 2 52 52 viwango
TG kenstand
Korea, Dem. P. Rep. of/
Corie, Rip. dim. p. de (CSK)
Committee for Standardization of
the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea
Zung Gu Yok Seungli-Street
PYONGYANG
TP +57 15 76
TX 59 72 tech kp
TG standard
Korea, Rep. of/
Corie, Rip. de (KBS)
*Bureau of Standards
Industrial Advancement
Administration
2, Chungang-dong, Kwachon-city
KYONGGI-DO 427-010
TP +82 2 503 79 28
TF +82 2 503 79 41
TX 2 84 56 fincen k
TG koreaiaa
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya/
Jamahiriya Arabe Libyenne (LNCSM)
Libyan National Centre for
Standardization and Metrology
Industrial Research Centre Building
P.O. Box 5178
TRIPOLI
TP +218 21 469 37
TF +218 21 469 37
TX 205 49 ncsm
Malaysia/Malaisie (SIRIM)
Standards and Industrial Research
Institute of Malaysia
Persiaran Dato' Menteri, Section 2
P.O. Box 7035, 40911 Sha Alam
SELANGOR DARUL EHSAN
TP +60 3 559 26 01
TF +60 3 550 80 95
TX ma 3 86 72
TG sirimsec shah alam
Mexico/Mexique (DGN)
*Direccisn General de Normas
Calle Puente de Tecamachalco N.: 6
Lomas de Tecamachalco
Seccisn Fuentes
Naucalpan de Juarez
53 950 MEXICO
TP +52 5 520 84 94
TF +52 5 540 51 53
TX 177 58 40 imceme
TG secofi/147
Mongolia/Mongolie (MNIS)
Mongolian National Institute
for Standardization
ULAANBAATAR 37
TP +3 29 30
TX 79233 mnis mn
TG ust ulaanbaatar 37 mn
Morocco/Maroc (SNIMA)
Service de normalisation industrielle
marocaine
1, place Sefrou (Tour Hassan)
RABAT
TP +212 72 45 30
TX 3 18 72
Netherlands/Pays-Bas (NNI)
*Nederlands Normalisatie-Instituut
Kalfjeslaan 2
P.O. Box 5059
2600 GB DELFT
TP +31 15 69 03 90
TF +31 15 69 01 90
TX 3 81 44 nni nl
TG normalisatie delft
New Zealand/Nouvelle-Zilande (SANZ)
*Standards Association
of New Zealand
Private Bag
WELLINGTON
TP +64 4 384 21 08
TF +64 4 384 39 38
TX 38 50 sanz nz
TG standards
Norway/Norvhge (NSF)
*Norges Standardiseringsforbund
Postboks 7020 Homansbyen
N-0306 OSLO 3
TP +47 2 46 60 94
TF +47 2 46 44 57
TX 1 90 50 nsf n
TG standardisering
Pakistan (PSI)
*Pakistan Standards Institution
39 Garden Road, Saddar
KARACHI-74400
TP +92 21 772 95 27
TF +92 21 772 95 27
TG peyasai
Philippines (BPS)
*Bureau of Product Standards
Department of Trade and Industry
361 Sen. Gil. J. Puyat Avenue
Makati
METRO MANILA 3117
TP +63 2 818 57 01
TF +63 2 817 98 70
TX 1 48 30 mti ps
TG philstand manila
Poland/Pologne (PKNMIJ)
*Polish Committee for
Standardization,
Measures and Quality Control
UI. Elektoralna 2
00-139 WARSZAWA
TP +48 22 20 54 34
TF +48 22 20 83 78
TX 81 36 42 pkn pl
TG pekanim
Portugal (IPQ)
*Instituto Portugujs da Qualidade
Rua Josi Estjvco, 83-A
P-1199 LISBOA CODEX
TP +351 1 52 39 78
TF +351 1 53 00 33
TX 1 30 42 qualit p
Romania/Roumanie (IRS)
*Institut roumain de normalisation
13, rue Jean-Lois Calderon
Code 70201
BUCAREST 2
TP +400 11 14 40
TF +400 12 08 23
TX 1 13 12 irs ro
Russian Federation/
Fidiration de Russie (GOST)
State Committee for Standardization,
Metrology and Certification
Leninsky Prospekt 9
MOSKVA 117049
TP +7 095 236 40 44
TF +7 095 236 82 09
TX 41 13 78 gost su
TG moskva standart
Saudi Arabia/
Arabie Saoudite (SASO)
*Saudi Arabian Standards
Organization
P.O. Box 3437
RIYADH - 11471
TP +966 1 479 30 46
TF +966 1 479 30 63
TX 40 16 10 saso sj
TG giasy
Singapore/Singapour (SISIR)
*Singapore Institute of Standards
and Industrial Research
1 Science Park Drive
SINGAPORE 0511
TP +65 778 77 77
TF +65 778 00 86
TX rs 2 84 99 sisir
TG sisir
Slovenia, Rep. of/Slovinie, Rip. de
(SMIS)
Standards and Metrology Institute
of Slovenia
Ministry of Science and Technology
Slovenska 50
61000 LJUBLJANA
TP +38 61 11 11 07
TF +38 61 12 42 88
South Africa, Rep. of/
Afrique du Sud, Rip. d' (SABS)
*South African Bureau of
Standards
Private Bag X191
PRETORIA 0001
TP +27 12 428 79 11
TF +27 12 344 15 68
TX 32 13 08 sa
TG comparator
Spain/Espagne (AENOR)
Asociacisn Espaqola de
Normalizacisn y Certificacisn
Calle Fernandez de la Hoz, 52
E-28010 MADRID
TP +34 1 310 48 51
TF +34 1 310 49 76
TX 4 65 45 unor e
TG aenor
Sri Lanka (SLSI)
*Sri Lanka Standards Institution
53 Dharmapala Mawatha
P.O. Box 17
COLOMBO 3
TP +94 1 22 60 51
TF +94 1 44 60 18
TG pramika
Sweden/Suhde (SIS)
*SIS - Standardiseringskommissionen
i Sverige
Box 3295
S-103 66 STOCKHOLM
TP +46 8 613 52 00
TF +46 8 11 70 35
TX 1 74 53 sis s
TG standardis
Switzerland/Suisse (SNV)
*Swiss Association for
Standardization
Kirchenweg 4
Postfach
CH-8032 Z\RICH
TP +41 1 384 47 47
TF +41 1 384 47 74
TX 75 59 31 snv ch
TG normbureau
Syria/Syrie (SASMO)
*Syrian Arab Organization for
Standardization and Metrology
P.O. Box 11836
DAMASCUS
TP +963 11 45 05 38
TF +41 19 99 sasmo
TG systand
Tanzania/Tanzanie (TBS)
*Tanzania Bureau of Standards
P.O. Box 9524
DAR ES SALAAM
TP +255 51 4 80 51
TF +255 51 4 80 51
TX 4 16 67 tbs tz
TG standards
Thailand/Thaolande (TISI)
*Thai Industrial Standards Institute
Minstry of Industry
Rama IV Street
BANGKOK 10400
TP +66 2 245 78 02
TF +66 2 247 87 41
TX 8 43 75 minidus th
(attention tisi)
TH thastan
Trinidad and Tobago/
Tiniti-et-Tobago (TTBS)
*Trinidad and Tobago Bureau
of Standards
P.O. Box 467
PORT OF SPAIN
TP +1 809 662 88 27
TF +1 809 663 43 35
TG qualassure
Tunisia/Tunisie (INNORPI)
Institut national de la normalisation
et de la propriiti industrielle
B.P. 23
1012 TUNIS-BELVIDHRE
TP +216 1 78 59 22
TF +216 1 78 15 63
TX 1 36 02 inorpi tn
Turkey/Turquie (TSE)
*T|rk Standardlari Enstit|s|
Necatibey Cad. 112
Bakanliklar
06100 ANKARA
TP +90 4 417 83 30
TF +90 4 125 43 99
TX 4 20 47 tse-tr
TG standard
United Kingdom/
Royaume-Uni (BSI)
*British Standards Institution
2 Park Street
GB-LONDON W1A 2BS
TP +44 71 629 90 00
TF +44 71 629 05 06
TX 35 69 33 bsilon g
TG standards london w.1
Uruguay (UNIT)
Instituto Uruguayo de Normas
Ticnicas
San Josi 1031 P.7
Galeria Elysie
MONTEVIDEO
TP +598 2 91 20 48
TF +598 2 92 16 81
TX 2 31 68 ancap uy
USA (ANSI)
*American National Standards
Institute
11 West 42nd Street
13th floor
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10036
TP +1 212 642 49 00
TF +1 212 398 00 23
TX 42 42 96 ansi ui
TG standards, new york
Venezuela (COVENIN)
*Comisisn Venezolana de Normas
Industriales
Avda. Andris Bello
Edf. Torre Fondo Comzn
Piso 12
CARACAS 1050
TP +58 2 575 22 98
TF +58 2 574 13 12
TX 2 42 35 minfo vc
TG covenindus
Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of/
Ripublique socialiste du (TCVN)
General Department for
Standardization, Metrology
and Quality
70, Tran Hung Dao Street
Box 81
HANOI
TP +84 4 25 63 75
TF +84 8 9 30 12
TX 41 22 87 ukkn vt
TG vinastand
Yugoslavia/Yougoslavie (SZS)
*Savezni zavod za standardizaciju
Slobodana Penezica Krcuna br. 35
Post Pregr. 933
YU-11000 BEOGRAD
TP +38 11 64 40 66
TF +38 11 235 10 36
TX 1 20 89 jus yu
TG standardizacija
Zimbabwe (SAZ)
Standards Association
of Zimbabwe
P.O. Box 2259
HARARE
TP +263 4 70 60 52
TG saca
Correspondent members
"A correspondent member is normally an organization in a developing
country which does not yet have its own national standards body.
Correspondent members do not take an active part in the technical
work, but are entitled to be kept fully informed about the work of
interest to them. Nearly all the present correspondent members are
governmental institutions." [from: ISO member list]
Bahrain
Directorate of Standards
and Metrology
Ministry of Commerce
and Agriculture
P.O. Box 5479
BAHRAIN
TP +973 53 01 00
TF +973 53 04 55
TX 91 71 tejara bn
Barbados/Barbade
Barbados National Standards
Institution (BNSI)
"Flodden" Culloden Road
ST. MICHAEL
TP +500 809 426 38 70
TF +500 809 436 14 95
TX barstand, barbados
Brunei Darussalam/
Brunii Darussalam
Construction Planning and
Research Unit
Ministry of Development
NEGARA BRUNEI DARUSSALAM
TP +673 2 24 20 33
TF +673 2 24 22 67
TX 27 22 midev bu
TG midevbrunei
Hong Kong
Industry Department
Hong Kong Government
14/F. Ocean Centre
5 Canton Road
Kowloon
HONG KONG
TP +852 829 48 24
TF +852 824 13 02
TX 5 01 51 indhk hx
Jordan/Jordanie
Directorate of Standards and
Measures
Ministry of Industry and Trade
P.O. Box 2019
AMMAN
TP +962 6 66 31 91
TF +962 6 60 37 21
TX 2 11 63 mintr jo
Kuwait/Koweot
Standards and Metrology
Department
Ministry of Commerce and Industry
Post Box No. 2944 Safat
13030 KUWAIT
TF +965 242 44 11
TX 2 26 82 commind kt
Republic of Lithuania/
Ripublique de Lituanie
Lithuanian State Standardization
Office (LST)
A. Jaksto g. 1/25
2600 VILNIUS
TP +7 012 222 69 62
TF +7 012 222 62 52
Madagascar
Direction de la qualiti
et de la mitrologie ligale
B.P. 1316
101 ANTANANARIVO
TP +261 2 238 60
TX 22 378 min co mg
Malawi
Malawi Bureau of Standards
P.O. Box 946
BLANTYRE
TP +265 67 04 88
TF +265 67 07 56
TX 4 43 25
TG standards
Mali
Direction nationale des Industries
du Mali
Ministhre de l'iconomie
et des finances
B.P. 278
BAMAKO
TP +223 22 57 56
TF +223 22 88 53
TX 2559 mj
Malta/Malte
Malta Board of Standards
Department of Industry
St. George's
Cannon Road
SANTA VENERA
TP +356 44 62 50
TF +356 44 62 57
Mauritius/Ile Maurice
Mauritius Standards Bureau
Ministry of Industry and Industrial
Technology
REDUIT
TP +230 454 19 33
TF +230 464 11 44
TX 42 49 extern iw
Nepal/Nipal
Nepal Bureau of Standards
and Metrology
B.P. Box 985
Sundhara
KATHMANDU
TP +977 1 27 26 89
TG gunis
Oman, Sultanate of/Sultanat d'
Directorate General for
Specifications and Measurements
Ministry of Commerce and Industry
P.O. Box 550
MUSCAT
TP +968 70 47 83
TF +968 79 59 92
TX 36 65 wizara on
TG wizarah
Papua New Guinea/
Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinie (PNGS)
National Standards Council
P.O. Box 3042
BOROKO
TP +675 27 21 02
TF +675 25 24 03
Seychelles, Rep. of/Rip. des
Department of Industry
P.O. Box 648
Bel Eau
MAHE
TP +248 2 50 60
TF +248 2 50 86
TX 24 22 ind sz
Uganda/Ouganda
Uganda National Bureau
of Standards
P.O. Box 6329
KAMPALA
TP +256 41 25 86 69
TG mincom kampala
United Arab Emirates/
Imirats Arabes Unis
Directorate of Standardization
and Metrology
P.O. Box 433
ABU DHABI
TP +971 2 72 60 00
TF +971 2 77 33 01
TX 2 29 37 fedfin em
References
----------
Carl F. Cargill
Information Technology Standardization
Theory, Process, and Organizations
1989 DEC Digital Press
ISBN 1-55558-022-X
The book gives a good survey of standardization in the realm of
information technology.
Taylor, Dave
Global Software
Springer-Verlag, 1992
ISBN: 0-387-97706-6 / 3-540-99706-6
Might prove quite helpful for people trying to understand the
complexities of internationalization for the first time and
explains also international and de-facto standards in this area.
StandardView
This is an ACM publication about computer related standardization
issues. The editor-in-chief's address is Carl Cargill, Sun Microsystems,
2550 Garcia Avenue, MTV01-05, Mountain View, CA 94043, email
<Carl.Cargill@eng.sun.com>.
I wish to thank the following people and others for their contributions
to this text (and the osi-protocols FAQ):
David Gay <dgay@di.epfl.ch>
Kit Lueder <kit@gateway.mitre.org>
Don Provan <donp@novell.com>
David Torr <dave@philips.oz.au>
See-Mong Tan <stan@ncb.gov.sg>
Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald.Alvestrand@delab.sintef.no>
Kerry Raymond <kerry@citr.uq.oz.au>
Alasdair Grant <AG129@PHOENIX.CAMBRIDGE.ac.uk>
Lakshmoji Rao <R.Lakshmoji@frec.bull.fr>
John A. Shriver <jas@proteon.com>
Ketil Albertsen <ketil@edb.tih.no>
K.C. Chan <kchan@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Alex McKenzie <mckenzie@BBN.COM>
John Levine <johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us>
Peter Desnoyers <peterd@merlin.dev.cdx.mot.com>
Keld Simonsen <keld@login.dkuug.dk>
Bancroft Scott <baos@oss.oss.com>
Bill Stallings <72500.3562@CompuServe.COM>
Jutta Degener <jutta@cs.tu-berlin.de>
Norbert Gerfelder <gerfi@igd.fhg.de>
Kristy Brown <mkb@anubis.network.com>
Uwe Kunzler <pla_uku@pki-nbg.philips.de>
Sandeep Phadke <sandeep@acsc.com>
James W. Reese <R505040@UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU>
Inge A. Suhr <etxias@mega.ericsson.se>
Ed Ravin <eravin@Panix.Com>
Simon Spero <ses@sunsite.unc.edu>
Chris Johnson <Chris.Johnson@cs.anu.edu.au>
Bob Goudreau <goudreau@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Robert Corbett <Robert.Corbett@Eng.Sun.COM>
Dave Taylor <taylor@netcom.com>
Tim Moors <tim@atri.curtin.edu.au>
Michael Welser <mwelser@iaik.tu-graz.ac.at>
Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>
Arthur Marsh <Arthur@cswamp.apana.org.au>
Matthias Krippendorf <Matthias.Krippendorf@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de>
Gary Brown <gsb@csi.compuserve.com>
Christoph Badura <bad@flatlin.ka.sub.org>
Brad Smith <smithb@lurch.cme.nist.gov>
John Williams <mla05@seq1.kl.ac.uk>
Kees Pronk <kees@dutiba.twi.tudelft.nl>
Jan Schipmolder <schip@sgi428.msd.lmsc.lockheed.com>
[End of Standards FAQ]
--
Markus Kuhn, Computer Science student +0o0; University of Erlangen, Germany
Internet: mskuhn@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de | X.500 entry available
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