RE: The Corporation for Public Software/Natianal Endowment for the Bits

[Chuck Swiger <cswiger@widomaker.com>]

  From: 	sjohnson@gwi.net[SMTP:sjohnson@gwi.net]
  >** Reply to note from cswiger@widomaker.com Mon, 22 Dec 1997 09:57:14 -0500 (EST) 
  > 
  >However, as a recently retired (state) government worker, I would not want the government  
  >to 'own' the standard, at least in any but the most formal sense. I can all too readily imagine  
  
  Perhaps I shouldn't say 'govt owned' as much as an 'established public standard' like weights
  and measures - the scale at your local grocery store is regularly checked for complaince to
  'standard' NIST weights pretty seriously, with penalties for running a 'bogus' scale, enough so that
  we 'trust' when buying a pound of tofu from Farmer Bob's we're price competing on a level field
  as a pound of the same stuff from Winn-Yankee, as a common competitive referance.
  
  	
  Chuck
  cswiger@widomaker.com