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The role of the government in standardization
Johnson J., Culp J., Poole C., Theibert M., Vidmar R. StandardView1 (2):17-24,1993.Type:Article
Date Reviewed: May 1 1995

From the title of the paper and the positions of the authors, I expected a paper that described how state governments play a unique role in determining and enforcing standards for computer-based systems. The summary blurb also implies that it addresses how such standards improve the ability of state and local governments to serve their constituents. As a software engineer who held various elected offices in local government for 14 years, I started to read this paper with great interest. What a disappointment! Neither issue is addressed.

This paper consists of two separate reports: “Service to the Citizenry through Opening the Enterprise” (authors unstated, presumably Culp, Theibert, and Vidmar) and “The Standards Process is Broken” (by Johnson and Poole). The division between them is clear, both in format and in style. Each should have been published separately. Both do have a common theme that supports the need for open systems that unite dissimilar platforms.

The first section briefly describes the evolution of data processing in state and local governments and how current systems are based on networks of low-cost hardware units. It then discusses how a lack of workable standards inhibits connecting government to its constituents across dissimilar platforms, but then suggests that interoperability might be easily achieved without standards. The authors advocate the use of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) along with SQL-89 as de facto standards that will correct this problem. The section ends with a formal recommendation to the National Association of State Information Resource Executives. The catch phrase in this section’s title--“opening the enterprise”--must be a favorite of the authors’; that phrase and equivalents appear 13 times (not counting the title) in the three pages of this section.

The second section decries ongoing failures of standards to achieve interplatform compatibility. Much of that criticism is directed toward the slowness with which standards are developed and implemented. According to the authors, the result is that de facto standards then arise from developments by dominant companies in the computer industry. This section also discusses problems and successes with interoperability between such de facto standards.

While the second section criticizes the slowness with which computer system standards are implemented, the first section of this paper states, “the use of standards usually guarantees a loss of functionality.…” I feel that accelerated development and implementation of standards can prematurely stifle innovation. Standards are most appropriate when a development evolves from innovation to maturity.

While I was preparing this review of a paper that claims government systems are not sufficiently open to the public, the Los Angeles Times published an article [1] that devoted over 60 column-inches (not including a sidebar) to describing how open such systems are, at least at the federal level. The sidebar gave Internet addresses for various federal officials and offices, and mentioned Americans Communicating Electronically (ACE), an organization of federal bureaucrats whose goal is to “open the enterprise” even more. Perhaps the problem this paper addresses lies not in the lack of technology and standards but instead in the lack of resources and motivation at the state and local levels.

Reviewer:  D. E. Ross Review #: CR118240
1) Rosenstiel, T. B. New technology bringing government, people closer. Los Angeles Times CXIII, 289 (18 September 1994), A20–A22.
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