Hi Michiel,

 MvdV> One of the jobs of the FTSC is to document "exising 
 MvdV> practise". Which then becomes a standard by 
 MvdV> documenting it. Another route to an FTSC standard is 
 MvdV> through a standard proposal.

The catch being that in many cases, the standard had already been
documented by the author, and the FTSC didn't really need to do much other
than check the publication, wave a magic wand and say "let it be
so". This is why I consider all of Fidonets standards as defacto,
their adoption is mor from actual use, not by some fantastic decree.

Yes it was nice to have a recognised body of people "approve" of
something, but that usually had very little to do with the standard being
adopted as "best preactise" by the Members (IMHO).

 MvdV> Even a defacto standard needs to be documented some 
 MvdV> way. How else would one know what one is talking about?

However very few documents were "written" or "edited"
by the FTSC, they were usually "passed" or "approved"
by them, but not written by them.

Cheers...........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01