The
International Organization for Standardization
(
Organisation internationale de normalisation), widely
known as
ISO ( ), is an
international-standard-setting body
composed of representatives from various national
standards organizations. Founded on
23 February 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide
proprietary industrial and commercial
standards.
It has its headquarters in Geneva
, Switzerland
.While ISO defines itself as a
non-governmental organization,
its ability to set standards that often become law, either through
treaties or national standards, makes it more
powerful than most non-governmental organizations. In practice, ISO
acts as a consortium with strong links to governments.
Name and abbreviation
The organization's
logos in its two official
languages,
English and
French, include the word
ISO ( ),
and it is usually referred to by this short-form name.
ISO
is not an
acronym or
initialism for the organization's full name in either official
language. Rather, the organization adopted
ISO based on
the Greek word
isos ( ), meaning
equal.
Recognizing that the organization’s initials would be different in
different languages, the organization's founders chose
ISO
as the universal short form of its name. This, in itself, reflects
the aim of the organization: to equalize and standardize across
cultures.
International Standards and other publications
ISO's main products are the International Standards. ISO also
publishes Technical Reports, Technical Specifications, Publicly
Available Specifications, Technical Corrigenda, and Guides.The ISO
directives are published in two distinct parts:
*
International Standards are identified in the
format
ISO[/IEC][/ASTM] [IS] nnnnn[:yyyy] Title, where
nnnnn is the number of the standard,
yyyy is the
year published, and
Title describes the subject.
IEC for
International Electrotechnical Commission
is included if the standard results from the work of ISO/IEC JTC1
(the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee).
ASTM is used for
standards developed in cooperation with
ASTM International. The date and
IS are not used for an incomplete or unpublished standard,
and may under some circumstances be left off the title of a
published work.
Technical Reports are issued when "a technical
committee or subcommittee has collected data of a different kind
from that which is normally published as an International
Standard". such as references and explanations. The naming
conventions for these are the same as for standards, except
TR prepended instead of
IS in the report's name.
Examples:
- 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 can be produced when "the
subject in question is still under development or where for any
other reason there is the future but not immediate possibility of
an agreement to publish an International Standard".
Publicly Available Specifications may be "an
intermediate specification, published prior to the development of a
full International Standard, or, in IEC may be a 'dual logo'
publication published in collaboration with an external
organization". Both are named by convention similar to Technical
Reports, 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
ISO sometimes issues a
Technical Corrigendum.
These are amendments to existing standards because of minor
technical flaws, usability improvements, or to extend applicability
in a limited way. Generally, these are issued with the expectation
that the affected standard will be updated or withdrawn at its next
scheduled review.
ISO Guides are meta-standards covering "matters
related to international standardization". They are named in 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
ISO document copyright
ISO documents are copyrighted and ISO charges for copies of most.
ISO does not, however, charge for most draft copies of documents in
electronic format. Although useful, care must be taken using these
drafts as there is the possibility of substantial change before it
becomes finalized as a standard. Some standards by ISO and its
official U.S. representative (and the
International
Electrotechnical Commission's via the U.S. National Committee)
are made freely available.
Members

A map of standards bodies who are ISO
members
Key:
ISO has
158
national members, out of the 195 total countries in the
world.
ISO has three membership categories:
- Member bodies are national bodies that are
considered to be the most representative standards body in each
country. These are the only members of ISO that have voting
rights.
- Correspondent members are countries that do
not have their own standards organization. These members are
informed about ISO's work, but do not participate in standards
promulgation.
- Subscriber members are countries with small
economies. They pay reduced membership fees, but can follow the
development of standards.
Participating members are called "P" members as opposed to
observing members which are called "O" members.
Products named after ISO
The fact that many of the ISO-created standards are ubiquitous has
led, on occasion, to common use of "ISO" to describe the actual
product that conforms to a standard. Some examples of this
are:
- CD images end in the file extension "ISO"
to signify that they are using the ISO 9660
standard filesystem as opposed to another file system - hence CD
images are commonly referred to as "ISOs". Virtually all computers
with CD-ROM drives can read CDs that use this
standard. Some DVD-ROMs also use ISO 9660 filesystems.
- Photographic film's sensitivity to light, its "film speed," is described by ISO 5800:1987. Hence, the film's speed is often
referred to as its "ISO number."
ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1
To deal with the consequences of substantial overlap in areas of
standardization and work related to information technology, ISO and
IEC formed
a Joint Technical Committee known as the ISO/IEC JTC1. It was the
first such joint committee, and to date remains the only one.
IWA document
Like ISO/TS, International Workshop Agreement (IWA) is another
armoury of ISO for providing rapid response to requirements for
standardization in areas where the technical structures and
expertise are not currently in place. The utility harmonizes
technical urgency industrial wide.
Criticism
With the exception of a small number of isolated standards, ISO
standards are normally not available free of charge, but for a
purchase fee, which has been seen by some as too expensive for
small
Open source projects.
The ISO/IEC JTC1 fast-track procedures ("Fast-track" as used by
OOXML and "PAS" as used by
OpenDocument) have garnered criticism in
relation to the
standardization of Office
Open XML (ISO/IEC 29500). Martin Bryan, outgoing Convenor of
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34 WG1, is quoted as saying:
I would recommend my successor that it is perhaps time
to pass WG1’s outstanding standards over to OASIS, where they can
get approval in less than a year and then do a PAS submission to
ISO, which will get a lot more attention and be approved much
faster than standards currently can be within WG1.
The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO
committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock
in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast
disappearing. Instead we are getting 'standardization by
corporation'.
Computer security entrepreneur and
Ubuntu investor,
Mark Shuttleworth, commented on the
Standardization of
Office Open XML process by saying
I think it de-values the confidence people have in the
standards setting process,
and Shuttleworth alleged that ISO did not carry out its
responsibility. He also noted that
Microsoft had intensely lobbied many countries
that traditionally had not participated in ISO and stacked
technical committees with Microsoft employees, solution providers
and resellers sympathetic to Office Open XML.
When you have a process built on trust and when that
trust is abused, ISO should halt the process ... ISO is an
engineering old boys club and these things are boring so you have
to have a lot of passion … then suddenly you have an investment of
a lot of money and lobbying and you get artificial results ... The
process is not set up to deal with intensive corporate lobbying and
so you end up with something being a standard that’s not
clear.
Organizational chart
Management chart
See also
References
External links