[Foundation-l] Request for approval for a wiki for standards

Sat Jan 7 22:03:29 UTC 2006

Delirium wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
>
>> To what extent do these standards have the force of law, particularly 
>> in the United States.  When the United States ratifies a treaty it 
>> means that it has effectively made that treaty a part of the law of 
>> the United States.  Since US laws are excluded from copyright we 
>> should be free to include the standards that have been so adopted 
>> into Wikisource.
>
> Generally they aren't adopted verbatim into law---instead the law 
> references the standards, which still remain under copyright.  For 
> example, the law will include a phrase like "for devices in compliance 
> with ISO standard xxxxx", but will not actually include the text of 
> said standard. 

Such a phrase would make them a part of the law by implication, and thus 
not protected.  Of course, before using  any one of them we would need 
to make sure that the US has in fact adopted that standard.

Ec