International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization (sometimes called: International Organization for Standardization; known by the acronym ISO) is an organization for the creation of international standards composed of various national standardization organizations.

Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promotes the use of proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards worldwide. Its headquarters are in Geneva (Switzerland) and until 2015 it worked in 196 countries.

Introduction

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an independent, non-governmental organization made up of the standards organizations of its 167 member countries. It is the world's largest developer of voluntary international standards and facilitates world trade by providing common standards between countries. Nearly twenty thousand standards have been established covering everything from manufactured products and technology to food safety, agriculture and sanitation.

The use of standards facilitates the creation of products and services that are safe, reliable and of quality. Standards help businesses increase productivity while minimizing errors and expense. By allowing you to directly compare products from different manufacturers, it makes it easier for new companies to enter new markets and helps develop global trade on a fair basis. The standards also serve to protect consumers and end users of products and services, ensuring that certified products conform to internationally standardized minimums.

Name and initials

The three official languages of ISO are English, French and Russian. The name of the organization in French is Organisation internationale de normalisation, International Organization for Standardization in English and Международная организация по стандартизации in Russian. According to ISO, because its name in different languages would have different acronyms ("IOS" in English, "OIN" in French, etc.), the organization adopted "ISO" 3. 4; as its initials in reference to the Greek word isos (ἴσος, translated as same) However, during the founding meetings of the new organization, this word was never mentioned, so this explanation could have been imagined later.

Both the name "ISO" as the logo are registered trademarks, and their use is restricted.

History

Placa pointing out the building in Prague where the ISO predecessor, ISA, was founded.

The organization known today as ISO was born in 1926 as the International Federation of National Standardization Associations (ISA). It was suspended in 1942 during World War II, but after the war it was proposed by the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) to form a new global standards body. In October 1946, delegates from ISA and UNSCC members from 25 countries met in London and decided to join forces to create the new International Organization for Standardization; the new organization would officially begin operations in February 1947.

Structure

ISO is a voluntary organization whose members are recognized authorities on standardization, each representing a country. Members meet annually in the General Assembly to discuss ISO's strategic objectives. The organization is coordinated by a Central Secretariat based in Geneva.

A rotating Council of 20 members provides guidance and governance, including setting the annual budgets of the Central Secretariat.

The Technical Management Board is responsible for about 250 technical committees, which develop ISO standards.

Joint committees with IEC

ISO has formed several joint committees with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to develop standards and terminology related to areas of electrical and electronic technology.

ISO/IEC JTC 1

Information technology

The ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) was created in 1987 to "develop, maintain, promote and facilitate standards related to Information Technology".

ISO/IEC JTC 2

Joint Committee Project – Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources – Common Terminology

The ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 2 (JTC 2) was created in 2009 with the purpose of "standardizing the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources".

Affiliation

ISO member countries entitled to vote Correspondent members (countries without a national standardization body). Subscribing members (countries with small economies) Non-member countries with ISO 3166-1 codes.

ISO has 167 member countries, out of a total of 206 countries in the world.

ISO has three categories of members:

• Them Membership bodies are bodies of national standardization considered to be the most representative of each country. They are the only ISO members with the right to vote.
• Them Correspondent members they are countries that do not have their own standardization organization. These members are informed about the work of ISO, but do not participate in the promulgation of standards.
• Them Subscribing members they are countries with small economies. They pay reduced rates, but they can follow the development of standards.

Participating members are called "P" members, as opposed to observing members, who are called "O" members.

Funding

ISO is funded by a combination of:

• Organizations that manage specific projects or provide experts to participate in technical work.
• Subscriptions of the member bodies. These subscriptions are proportional to the gross domestic product of each country and its trade figures.
• Sale of standards.

International Standards and other publications

ISO's main products are its international standards. ISO also publishes technical reports, technical specifications, publicly available specifications, technical errata, and guides.

International standards

They are designated using the format ISO[/IEC] [/ASTM] [IS] nnnnn[-p]:[yyyyy] TitleWhere nnnn is the standard number, p is an optional part number, yyyyy is the year of publication and Title describes the standard theme. IEC (from the International Electrotechnical Commission is included if the standard is the result of the work of ISO/IEC JT1 (The Technical Joint Committee). ASTM (from American Society for Material Testing) is used for standards developed along with ASTM International. yyyyy and IS are not used for incomplete or unpublished standards and under certain circumstances can be omitted from the title of a published work.

Technical reports

They are issued when a technical committee or subcommittee collects information of a different type than is normally published as an International Standard, such as references and explanations. The designation agreement for these is the same as for the standards, except that it is TR instead of IS in the name of the report.
For example:

• ISO/IEC TR 17799:2000 Code of Practice for Information Security Management
• ISO/TR 19033:2000 Technical product documentation — Metadata for construction documentation

Technical specifications and publicly available

Technical specifications can be created when "the subject in question is still under development or when for any other reason there is the possibility in the not immediate future of an agreement to publish an International Standard." A publicly available specification is normally a "intermediate specification, previously published to the development of a compleor International Standard, or, in IEC, can be a joint publication published in collaboration with an external organization". By agreement, both types of specifications are named in a manner similar to the technical reports of the organization.
For example:

• ISO/TS 16952-1:2006 Technical product documentation — Reference designation system — Part 1: General application rules
• ISO/PAS 11154:2006 Road vehicles — Roof load carriers

Technical developments

Sometimes ISO also publishes “technical chains”. These are amendments made to existing standards due to minor technical failures, usability improvements or limited applicability extensions. They are normally published with the intention that the affected standard will be updated or withdrawn in the next planned review.

ISO Guides

They are meta-standards that cover "subjects related to international standardization". They are named using the format "ISO[/IEC]Guide N:yyyy: Title"
For example:

• ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004 Standardization and related activities — General vocabulary
• ISO/IEC Guide 65:1996 General requirements for bodies operating product certification

Por tema

• PWI – Preliminary Work Item
• NP or NWIP – New Proposal (New Proposal) or New Work Item Proposal (For example, ISO/IEC NP 23007)
• AWI – Approved Work Item (Approved new Work Item) (e.g. ISO/IEC AWI 15444-14)
• WD – Working Draft (Working Draft) (e.g. ISO/IEC WD 27032)
• CD – Committee Draft (Committee Draft) (e.g. ISO/IEC CD 23000-5)
• FCD – Committee Draft Final Draft (for example, ISO/IEC FCD 23000-12)
• DIS – International Standard Draft (Draft International Standard) (e.g., ISO/IEC DIS 14297)
• IDFS – Final Draft International Standard (Final Draft International Standard) (e.g. ISO/IEC FDIS 27003)
• PRF – Proof of a new International Standard (Proof of a new International Standard) (e.g. ISO/IEC PRF 18018)
• IS – International Standard (International Standard) (e.g. ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007)

Abbreviations used for amendments:

• NP Amd – New Proposal Amendment (New Proposal Amendment) (e.g. ISO/IEC 15444-2:2004/NP Amd 3)
• AWI Amd – New Work Item Amendment (Approved new Work Item Amendment) (e.g. ISO/IEC 14492:2001/AWI Amd 4)
• WD Amd – Working Draft Amendment (Working Draft Amendment) (e.g. ISO 11092:1993/WD Amd 1)
• CD Amd / PDAmd – Committee Draft Amendment (Committee Draft Amendment) / Proposed Draft Amendment (Proposed Draft Amendment) (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/CD Amd 6)
• FPDAmd / DAM (DAmd) – Final Proposed Draft Amendment (Final Proposed Draft Amendment) / Amendment Draft (Draft Amendment) (e.g., ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003/FPDAmd 1)
• FDAM (FDAmd) – Final Draft Amendment (For example, ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/FDAmd 4)
• PRF Amd – Test Amendment of a new International Standard (Proof of a new International Standard Amendment) (e.g. ISO 12639:2004/PRF Amd 1)
• Amd – Amendment (Amendment) (e.g. ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Amd 1:2007)

Other abbreviations:

• TR – Technical Report (Technical Report) (e.g. ISO/IEC TR 19791:2006)
• DTR – Technical Report Draft (Draft Technical Report) (e.g. ISO/IEC DTR 19791)
• TS – Technical Specification (Technical Specification) (e.g. ISO/TS 16949:2009)
• DTS – Technical Specification Draft (Draft Technical Specification) (e.g. ISO/DTS 11602-1)
• PAS – Specification Available Publicly (Publicly Available Specification)
• TTA – Technology Trends Assessment (Technology Trends Assessment) (e.g. ISO/TTA 1:1994)
• IWA – International Workshop Agreement (International Workshop Agreement) (e.g., IWA 1:2005)
• Cor – Technical Erase (Technical Corrigendum) (e.g. ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Cor 1:2008)
• Guide – a guide for technical committees for the preparation of standards.

International Standards are developed by ISO technical committees (TCs) and subcommittees (SCs) through a six-stage process:

• Step 1: Proposition stage
• Stage 2: Preparation stage
• Stage 3: Committee stage
• Step 4: Research stage
• Stage 5: Approval phase
• Stage 6: Publishing stage

TCs and SCs may establish working groups (WGs) of experts for the preparation of working drafts. Subcommittees can have several working groups, which in turn can have several Subgroups (SG).

It is possible to skip certain stages, if there is a document with a certain degree of maturity at the beginning of the standardization project, for example a standard developed by another organization. The ISO/IEC guidelines also allow the so-called "Abbreviated Procedure". In this procedure the document is submitted directly for approval as a Draft International Standard (DIS) to ISO member bodies or as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) if the document was developed by an international standardization body recognized by the ISO. ISO Council.

The first step - a work proposal (New Proposal) - is approved by the relevant subcommittee or technical committee (for example, SC29 and JTC1 respectively in the case of the Moving Picture Experts Group - ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11). A working group (WG) of experts is established by the TC/SC for the preparation of a working draft. When the objective of a new work is clear enough, one of the working groups (for example, MPEG) usually makes an open request for proposals - known as a 'request for proposals'. The first document that is produced for example for audio and video coding standards is called a verification model (VM) (previously also called a "simulation and test model"). When sufficient confidence in the stability of the standard under development is achieved, a working draft (WD) is produced. It is in the form of a standard, but is maintained internally for review by the working group. When a working draft is strong enough and the working group is confident that the best technical solution to the problem at hand has been developed, it becomes a committee draft (CD). If necessary, this is when it is sent to the P members of the TC/SE (the national bodies) for a vote.

The CD becomes a final committee draft (FCD) if the number of positive votes is above the quorum. Various committee drafts may be evaluated until consensus is reached on their technical content. When it is reached, the text is finalized to be sent as a Draft International Standard (DIS). The text is then sent to the national bodies for voting and comment in a period of five months. It is approved as a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) if two-thirds of the P-members of the TC/SC are in favor and no more than one-fourth of the total votes cast are negative. ISO will then hold a vote with the National Bodies where no technical changes to the text can be proposed (a yes/no vote), over a period of two months. It is approved as an International Standard (IS) if two-thirds of the P-members of the TC/SC are in favor and no more than one-fourth of the votes cast are negative. After approval, only minor editorial changes will be made to the text. The final text is sent to the ISO Central Secretariat, which publishes it as an International Standard.

ISO named products

The fact that many of the standards created by ISO are ubiquitous has sometimes led to the use of "ISO" to call the product itself that conforms to a standard. Some examples of this are:

• Many CD images end with the "ISO" file extension to specify that they use the ISO 9660 file systems standard unlike other file systems, so these images are commonly called "ISOs". Technically all computers with CD-ROM drives that can read CDs use this standard. Some DVD-ROM also uses the ISO 9660 file system.
• The sensitivity of a light photographic film (their photographic sensitivity scale) is described in ISO 6, ISO 2240 and ISO 5800 standards; therefore the sensitivity of the film is normally known as its ISO number.
• When originally defined in the ISO 518 standard, the Flash Connection Shoe on the Photo Cameras (hot shoe in English) is known as ISO shoe in the Anglo-Saxon world.

Criticism

Except for a small number of isolated standards, ISO standards are not freely available, the cost of which has been seen by some quarters as too high for small open source software projects.

The ISO/IEC JTC1 abbreviated procedures (used by Office Open XML and OpenDocument) have drawn criticism regarding the standardization of Office Open XML. Martin Bryan, convenor of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1, said in this regard:

I would recommend to my successor that perhaps it is time to pass the outstanding rules of WG1 to OASIS, where they can get approval in less than a year, and then order PAS to ISO, with this they will get much more attention and can be approved much faster than a WG1 standard today. The disparity of standards for the PAS, Fast-Track and the ISO committee generated standards that are making ISO a laughingstock in IT circles. The days of the development of open standards are rapidly disappearing. Instead, we're getting 'corporate standardization'.

Report of WG1 activity in December 2007 during an ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG1 meeting in Kyoto

Security entrepreneur and Ubuntu investor Mark Shuttleworth commented on the Office Open XML standardization process that he "thinks it devalues people's trust in the standardization process" and claimed that ISO was not carrying out its responsibilities. He also noted that Microsoft has actively lobbied many countries that have not traditionally participated in ISO and formed committees with Microsoft employees, solution providers, and like-minded vendors on Office Open XLM.

When you have a process that is based on trust, and this trust is abused, ISO should stop the process... ISO is an engineering club for old boys and these things are boring, so you have to have a lot of passion... all of a sudden, you have an investment of a lot of money and lobbying and you get artificial results. The process is not designed to deal with intensive corporate lobbying, so you end up with something that is a standard that is not clear..

Shuttleworth blames ISO for the victory of OOXML

Further reading