A bid to make BSI docs more widely available.

[Dave]

Unfortunately, you can only print off ten percent of the content. I ran into this problem when I wanted to get hold of a B.S. for ladders for school. I went to my local library and they gave me a PIN number and told me to go to the central library, where I could brows on line. Not much good to me when I have to prove to HSE that I am complying with the reg.

Im on the side of Ed on this. If I want to see what a particular act of parliament says, I can sit and read it in my local library. Why is it not the same for a B.S?

Dave

[nightjar]

I have never had HSE, or our Quality Auditors, ask to see a copy of a BS to demonstrate compliance. They have their own copies of any relevant ones and usually know them off by heart anyway.

You have paid the cost of 'free' access to the Act through taxes, but BSI cannot collect their income that way.

Colin Bignell

[Ed Sirett]

Firstly they would probably go for the ebay source who after his/her initial investment gets £5 a doc.

Secondly the maximum they could reasonably ask me for is the full price (about £1500 if I get the full set of gas fitting ones). They won't get that without me having my day in court to explain myself.

[Ed Sirett]

At £47 quid they are a snip. Beside which it's a comprehensive tome. The gas fitting set are spread through 17 come of which are quite small.

[Ed Sirett]

I'm not a dishonest person, I have no intention to be underhand. A bad law is one that should not be followed. The instigating case here was to help decide weather someone had been over zealous in applying the standard to the flue at an elderly person's home.

[Ed Sirett]

I think you may be nearing the centre of the matter.

[Owain]

That would be if you made one copy. I'm afraid that if you make multiple copies and give them away to all your friends (or put them on a website for the loyal netizens of uk.d-i-y) they'll come after you for the value of multiple copies.

It might be cheaper to get the Zimbabwean (or whichever other TPLAC[1] copies our Standards) version.

Owain

[1] Refer: the Humphrey Appleby papers

[nightjar]

In other words, they should be paid for out of general taxation, so that all tax payers bear the cost, instead of just the people who actually want them.

Colin Bignell

[nightjar]

There is nothing to prevent a member of the public joining the BSI and getting the reduced price.

Colin Bignell

[Colin Wilson]

We`ve already paid for them - the least they can do is make them accessible !

[Owain]

And if I'd spent £1500 on a PDF file I'd expect it at least to have bookmarks and hyperlinks...

Owain

[Colin Wilson]

If i`d paid =A31500 for it, i`d expect it to come with free broadband to=20 enable you to click the hyperlinks, and a civil servant to scroll the=20 damn pages for you !

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It would cost near nothing to have them available in electronic form, since most documents start this way anyway these days.

And nominal cost for the hard copy could be the actual printing costs, etc. Not a figure set to discourage people from buying.

[Colin Wilson]

It makes a mockery of the concept of justice when "ignorance of the law is no defence" yet the ability to gain knowledge of every aspect of law would cost them more than they`re ever likely to earn.

[nightjar]

What you are paying for in a British Standard is the cost of researching it and of reviewing it every five years. That is the same no matter how it is presented.

Colin Bignell

[nightjar]

Exactly how do you think you have paid for any British Standard? The BSI is a commercial organisation, not a government body, and its work on creating and maintaining Standards is funded by the sales of those Standards. As a regular user of Standards, I have no problem with the idea that I should pay for the ones I use. If I want to look at any I don't use regularly, I go down to the Library.

Colin Bignell

[Guy King]

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

Well, that's not strictly true. It would cost the lost revenue from the sales that would no longer occur.

BSI's argument is that they have to pay for their activities by selling the standards they control, so if they had to give them away they'd have no income from which to pay for new and better ways of stopping people doing things.

I happen to think that it's something the government should make freely available - after all, we can all get the Highway Code and the MOT rules online because we're expected to adhere to them - why not the wiring codes?

[Christian McArdle]

Better still, you can just view it online.

Christian.

[Tony Bryer]

It's up to the library surely? Our local tech college (as was) library used to have a complete set of BSs and was open to the general public (for reference only).

[John Rumm]

Are these downloaded as PDF's? If so it is usually simple enough to strip the offending information from the file.