What is the role of ISO and ANSI?
Formal SDOs provide a venue for establishing consensus support for standards. For example, in the US, ANSI provides protection against accusations of vendors acting in unison against competition in violation of Anti-Trust laws. The value of ISO and ANSI to their respective constituents rests on constituent confidence that the standard approved by the SDO resulted from fair, above-board considerations assuring long-lived consensus support. The actual standard specification development is correctly turned over to volunteer technical experts. ISO and ANSI also serve coordinating and distributing functions which the paying members of the organization manage–somewhat like the United Nations. ISO and ANSI have “civil servants” whose salaries result from member dues. The annual budget provides the major members with control over member-regulated SDOs. The member organizations may choose to reduce member dues by using revenue from the sale of standards documents for supporting the SDO’s membe
