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Comment by theincredulousk | Hacker News Reader

I don't think $100 can really be considered a major roadblock to any technology professional capable of doing a standardized implementation...

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In a world where there were only a few hundred standards, sure.

But today's complex computer systems depend on hundreds of thousands of interfaces, and those interfaces are depended on by millions of organizations. Their business model inhibits standardization, instead of aiding it.

> I don't think $100 can really be considered a major roadblock to any technology professional capable of doing a standardized implementation...

The problem is: the time when people learn most about programming is as students when they have too much time and hardly any money.

having a copy of a single ISO standard is virtually never gonna work. too many references.

Also it's way to much trouble to make the purchase departement buy them. If the standard is not on some local file server due to someone dowloading it from some russian site, it doesn't exist and I just reverse engineer the needed part of the standard from some application using it and guess alot.

$100 isn't a roadblock to a funded implementation effort, but that's not the only meaningful interaction a functioning society can or should have with a standard. $100 is a large roadblock to many other types of meaningful interaction.

"What they should be" is always an arguable position. We can only hold them accountable to their own charter.

Why on earth would you think that? I don't give one whit about their charter. Neither should you. In all likelihood, neither do they.

Because I'm not an idealist, and I don't want to be one. I'd like to think I'm a practical person who looks at what can be done realistically. It has worked out OK for me so far. YMMV.

There's no driver for XQD cards in Linux because of a $100 specification for example

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