Hal,

I think you need to reread the definition of standard that Mike pointed out
and note that there is such a thing as a proprietary standard.  It also
would
not hurt to check the dictionary and note that of the 10+ meanings of the
word, a key element to the definition is that a standard simply provides a
basis for comparison.

This is nothing new ... it's been going on for a very long time now.  The
key element to the definitions has stayed the same all this time ... I
suspect
you just never thought of it this way before.

"Non-standard" does NOT mean "non-Microsoft," but it does not mean
"non-ISO/IEEE/NBS"
either.  It simply means non-compliance with some established standard, and
that
standard can come from many sources.

As to your thinking that people are agreeing with you, I don't think you and
I are
reading the same email messages ;-) ... you can argue against the
dictionaries all
you want, but that won't change anything.

Rick
====================================
Richard Conn, Principal Investigator
Reuse Tapestry


-----Original Message-----
From: Hal Hart [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 4:46 PM
To: Richard Conn
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Standards


Richard Conn wrote:

> Hi, Mike,
>
> I'm glad you see my point about the term "standard."  I don't think
> it's necessary to try to distinguish unless it means something to make
> the distinction.
> ...

RICK:  I still disagree, and I read almost everyone else replying in this
thread
to also disagree.  It now occurs to me that you are using the word
"standard"
where most of the rest of us would use "specification" (in the sense of a
document  --  altho certainly the implications of the 2 words in the Ada
sense
would pretty much carry the same distinction), or maybe even "definition."
There may legitimately be multiple specifications for something (a PL, a
function, a piece part, etc.), but hopefully only one of them gets
standardized
(or the standard is not exactly any one of them, but the result of a
consensus
process).  In fact, some competition prior to establishing a standard is
good,
to let users try out and evaluate alternative specifications/definitions of
a
solution proposed to be standardized, esp. if they're supported by
implementations (a mistake the DoD used to make often with its "MIL/DoD
Standards").

I guess this is a lost cause, because we can't control companies who want to
haphazardly stick the word "standard" on the front of their documents.  The
word
is already severely devalued, and our usage of it isn't going to make things
much better or worse than the already confusing state of affairs.
"Standard"
used to mean something, but now it's used so differently and inconsistently
as
to not be meaningful, IMO.  It's a shame.

     -Hal