Hacker News Reader

Comment by BayesianDice | Hacker News Reader

I did recently discover that the Estonian standards agency makes ISO standards available, not for free, but significantly more cheaply than other sources I found when trying to locate standards (although I didn't end up using it so don't know any more than is on the public Web site): https://www.evs.ee/en/

View on HN

At least for some - I randomly picked ISO 8601-1:2019 - there is even an option to buy 24 hours of access. In this example a PDF from ISO [1] is €150, from EVS [2] €19 and 24 hours access is only €2.40.

[1] https://www.iso.org/standard/70907.html

[2] https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-iso-8601-1-2019

As an IT Operations practitioner I want to better understand SQL, so I wanted to look at the SQL standard.

What used to be one document is now over a dozen -- it seems that part 2 (SQL/Foundation) deals with the SQL language basics, which is what I need right now.

It's about USD 250 via the Estonian web site (https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-iec-9075-2-2016)

It's about USD 215 from ISO directly: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:9075:-2:ed-5:v1:...

I am a member of the ACM and I reached out to them but it's not in their digital library.

I am looking for a legal yet economical way to obtain the standard. I am willing to pay $20 but not $200.

In most cases, the answer to your problem is "you're using it wrong".

On EVS, what you normally want to do is look up the EVS version, not the ISO/IEC version (because they also resell the original).

The EVS version is the regional version, which is for all intensive purposes identical to the original version (the topic has been covered before on HN, I'll try to find the link to the original).

But in your case it looks like unfortunately there isn't a regionalised version of 9075-2. ;-(

But just to demonstrate my point, let's take ISO9000 ...

    ISO9000:2015 at EUR197.77 [1]
    EVS-EN ISO 9000:2015 at EUR33.49 [2]

    [1] https://www.evs.ee/en/iso-9000-2015
    [2] https://www.evs.ee/en/evs-en-iso-9000-2015

Edit to add, if my understanding of the nomenclature is correct the BSI have a regionalised version (BS ISO/IEC 9075 1-4, 9-11, 13-14:2016) for GBP66 (or GBP33 for members)[3]

   [3]https://shop.bsigroup.com/products/information-technology-database-languages-sql

Understood, thank you very much! I appreciate your effort to look into this.

> intensive purposes

What

intents and purposes

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/usage-for-all-...

> intensive purposes > What

Just checking the resident Grammar Police Officer is awake and not eating doughnuts. ;-)

I'm not sure if this is right, but the Dutch standards body seems to have this document available [0] for free with part of it available for evaluation [1] and it seems like it's the real deal. Most other parts of the standard a shit ton of money (>€200 per part, with over 12 paid parts), but some others [2] are free as well. There are also outdated versions of the document available for free or cheap if those suit your needs, but I'm sure you can find cheaper alternatives for that as well.

I don't know if there are any requirements for access (like an address in the Netherlands, or Dutch citizenship) but it seems like you can just grab the standard from here completely legally.

[0]: https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-2-2016-c1-2019-en-263...

[1]: https://www.nen.nl/en/norm/pdf/preview/document/263083/

[2]: https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-9-2016-c1-2019-en-263... https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-4-2016-c1-2019-en-263...

Thanks! But the only thing that's free is the corrigendum (corrections):

https://www.nen.nl/en/nen-iso-iec-9075-2-2016-c1-2019-en-263...

The rest is around 200 euros per part:

https://www.nen.nl/en/elasticsearch/?search=9075&sortmode=as...

Aw, shucks. I thought that was the complete version.

I'd just pirate the damn thing if you weren't doing it for professional purposes.

That's okay, I appreciate your efforts. Thank you!

> PDF from ISO [1] is €150, from EVS [2] €19

Note that to get a non-DRM PDF from EVS, you need to select a multi-user license which makes it €28 minimum (inc. tax). But the paper version is also €19 + shipping.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com