BSI - backwards and a total rippoff

I agree. It used to be a lot easier pre Thatcher and all that crap. You can borrow a copy from local library but you might have to wait for them to get hold of it or I think you may be able to see it at your nearest HMSO office.

Are "We" in a Freedom of Information or a Data Protection mode these days.

It is the Great British lack of business acumen.

Surely if someone wants you to abide by a set of rules they must provide those rules for you.

Chris.

x-- 100 Proof News -

All the electronic BS documents are clearly watermarked at time of download with the original date and identity of the downloader. This watermarking cannot easily be removed. If copies started floating around then the BSI would be after another pound (or 200) of flesh.

Of course it is a well known fact that every CORGI registered fitter has a copy of all relevant British Standards on file, has read them cover to cover and fully understands them.

Have you never read Kafka's "The Trial"?

I'm sure you're convinced what you're saying is true, but the "cannot" should be spelled "can". And if they're pdf's, you can add the word "trivially".

High-res camera-phone and a distracted librarian?

Owain

Surely. The copies at gas training schools and assessment centres are virtually chained to the desk.

There is a great deal of stuff in there which is outside the ordinary and every day scope of domestic gas fitting. Much of the really important stuff has been transcribed into various gas fitting books which are available for a modest cost.

I agree that making the BSI documents unaffordable is very counter productive when things like the electric and building regs are available at reasonable cost of for free.

The members' discount on buying standards usually more than pays for the cost of membership.

Colin Bignell

Yes they are pdf's and given enough time yes it is possible - at least for the visible ones in the margin, but that won't stop the document being identified with the original downloader.

The stuff that isn't important might still be interesting. I find myself reading computer and interenet standards all the time as you can't totally trust the books.

What's really annoying is that if you buy something from screwfix for example and it says "to BS xxxx" in the description, then you have no idea what it means, and no cheap way to find out.

Mr F.

Even if you had the document, you may have no inexpensive way to find out whether the product meets the standard.

There are often weasel words like "designed to meet" which doesn't mean a thing.

In any case, British Standards are becoming less and less significant as they are either adopted or adapted in/from EuroNorme standards. Those aren't free either, although you can sometimes purchase individual ones.

Even the CE mark doesn't help that much. For most classes of product, it is the manufacturer's self declaration that the product meets the relevant standards for the product class. There should be a Declaration of Conformity certificate listing the standards used, but except in a limited set of cases like machinery there is not a requirement that a test should have been done by an independent body.

Having said all of that, there is a huge cost in the preparation of and testing to standards. It is reasonable for much of that cost to be borne by those wishing to access and use that information in the same way that we pay for other intellectual property like books and music.

Which does not perhaps mean much.

"My computer was stolen" for example.

Also, given two or more copies downloaded by different users it is quite easy to figure out how the identification is done and remove or scramble it.

Well in that case there is no reason to pay more for a British Standard than an EN or ISO standard.

Thankfully with computer standards, there is little or no cost. Demanding four figure sums would instantly put smaller players out of the game and every bit of software in the world would be developed by Microsoft or Oracle. Consider the enormous cost of validating a C++ compiler to ISO 14882. This involves many man years of testing. Preparation of the standard itself took a decade and the committee still meets regularly with the aim of revising the standard every 10 years. Yet it only costs USD 18 in PDF format.

Mr F.

Fortunately HMG has decided otherwise wrt legislation, SI, Building Regs Approved Documents etc. The key documents you need to be an architect are free, those you need to be a gas fitter cost £££

But of course a de-indentified copy is by definition a pirate copy so anyone trying to sell same through eBay or whatever is laying themselves open to action by BSI

Many of the other documents are unavailable. For example, a while back, UK customs confiscated a consignment of laser pointers that were 1% over the maximum emissions level, quoting safety as the reason. Never mind that they were to be used inside a sealed box.

Oops. "And standard BSxxx as justification"

Except that the potential readership and hence the cost recovery opportunity is likely to be much larger for a given ISO or EN standard than it is for a British one.

OK, so the cost recovery by ISO is in additional ways.