Paul,
It is really annoying that the brains behind standards give their
time freely. They are not paid. In Australia we dont even get our
expenses paid, yet are expected to travel across the country to
meetings in each state. That is why the standards committees are
dominated by companies with vested interests who can pay for
delegates to attend.
ASME and other organisations are struggling because the X & Y
Generation will not front up for nothing. Perhaps in fifty years all
the engineering will be to ASME (China) or ASME(India) standards.
This is similar to congresses and technical meetings. Engineers who
deliver technical papers are expected to prepare them in their own
time. Then travel and stay at their own expense and even pay to
particpate in the event. Then the organisation sells you paper to a
bureau and it ends up being sold to other engineers.
I applaud those who provide freeware, uncopywrited music, books
freely available on the Internet etc. But if someone makes a living
plying his craft then it should be paid for by the user.
Geoff Stone
- In PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com, Paul Bowers <pbowers@...> wrote:
>
> Sanjay Laturkar wrote (in part):
>
> > "It can not be stolen, the king can not confiscate or tax it and
this
> > treasure increases all the more with sharing.
> >
> > Knowledge truly is the highest form of wealth"
>
>
> It's impossible to disagree with this sentiment. People
cannot "unlearn"
> things.
>
> Is the solution to make important technical information freely
available
> to all? If so, who compensates those who "create", assemble,
maintain
> and disseminate this information? And at which rate of compensation
is
> this done?
>
> As you correctly point out, remuneration for services can be vastly
> different in different parts of the world. I don't have a fix for
that.
>
> Since you work in India, I have to ask how much do you pay for
> engineering software. Is it less than what the price is in North
> America? The last time I checked, a new AutoCAD license in Canada
cost
> about CAN$4500. If you want to run a 3D CAD piping program on top
of
> that expect to pay anywhere from CAN$2500 to CAN$12,000 depending
on the
> package and options chosen. This example excludes software like PDS
or PDMS.
>
> I used CAD software simply because it tends to be the most
expensive; it
> also does nothing related to actual design - it's really just a
> sophisticated electronic pencil and communication tool.
>
> Unless Indian companies are paying drastically reduced prices for
3D CAD
> software I don't see how purchasing ASME standards at ~US$450 each
is a
> real burden.
>
> Regards and thanks for the great post,
>
> Paul
>
Received on Sun Aug 05 17:54:00 2007