Status of Standard s A . Lyman Chapi n Bolt Beranek and Newma n Cambridge, Massachusett s The first report on the status of OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) and related standards appeared in CCR i n January, 1983 . Since then the original report has been joined, in alternate semi-annual issues, by a similar report on th e status of Internet standards, which in recent years have been recognized as "open system" standards at least as important as those promoted under the "OSI" banner . Since the Internet standards report was omitted from the Januar y 1994 CCR, both reports are included in this issue . It is widely known (and bemoaned) that the standards published by ISO (the International Organization for Standardization), IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission), and ITU (the Internationa l Telecommunications Union) are available only as paper documents, for which the publishing organizations charge a fe e that is intended to help them to recover some of the costs of developing the standards . Internet standards, on the othe r hand, have always been freely available on-line to anyone with even limited (e .g . electronic mail only) access to an y part of the
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