A standards group encourages all modes of market expansion. Thats
what standards are for.
I must take issue with this statement. A standard in fact does nothing of the
sort, nor is it what standards are for. A standard at its best encourages very
specific modes of market expansion. Writing a standard that encourages all
modes of expansion is a contradiction in terms -- standardizing on something
requires making choices and invariably alternative approaches (and hence
markets) are rejected. Encouraging all modes of market expansion amounts to
encouraging chaos, which is the opposite of the standards process.
Security services actually offer some of the most extreme examples of this.
When PEM was developed, for example, certain security algorithms were chosen
that had profound market consequences, e.g. the use of DES and RSA in PEM
prevent US software vendors from selling PEM implementations internationally.
If this isn't discouraging certain modes of expansion I don't know what is. (I
suppose it could have been worse, in that hardware incorporating classified
algorithms could have been selected, which quite possibly could have prevented
*anyone* from offering standardized services to some markets.)
Standards do have one primary goal: They seek to provide some kind of useful,
interoperable service. Fulfilling this goal means that decisions have to be
made, and sometimes making such decisions is exceptionally difficult.
Ned