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Comment by usamoi | Hacker News Reader

> The RISC-V ISA is already an industry standard and the next step is impartial recognition from a trusted international organization.

I'm confused. Isn't RISC-V International itself a trusted international organization? It's hard to see how an organization that standardizes screws and plugs could possibly be qualified to develop ISAs.

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ISO defines standards for much more than bolts and plugs. A few examples include: the C++ ISO standard, IT security standards and workplace safety standards, and that’s a small subset of what they do.

They develop a well defined standard, not the technologies mentioned in the standard. So yes, they’re qualified.

C++ "standard" sounds more like an example of why technology should avoid standards

If we are taking cheap potshots, there's a standard for standards: https://xkcd.com/927/ or in the proposed XKCD URI form xkcd://927

Titanic is not an example of why building ships has to be avoided. C++ is a great example, yes, of the damage ambitious and egotistical personas can inflict when cooperation is necessary.

Say what you will about C++, but it is undoubtedly one of the most successful and influential programming languages in history.

By which metric?

C, Java, Rust, JS, C# do exist

> influential

It's certainly a cautionary tale

It is certainly an example of why SC22 is a bad idea

The "C++ Standards Committee" is Working Group #21 of Sub Committee #22, of the Joint Technical Committee #1 between ISO and the IEC.

It is completely the wrong shape of organization for this work, a large unwieldy bureaucracy created so that sovereign entities could somehow agree things, this works pretty well for ISO 216 (the A-series paper sizes) and while it isn't very productive for something like ISO 26262 (safety) it can't do much harm. For the deeply technical work of a programming language it's hopeless.

The IETF shows a much better way to develop standards for technology.

The fact that the C++ committee is technically a subgroup of a subgroup of a subgroup is among the least of the issues of ISO for standardization.

The main problem is that ISO is a net negative value-add for standardization. At one point, the ISO editor came back and said "you need to change the standard because you used periods instead of commas for the decimal point, a violation of ISO rules." Small wonder there's muttering about taking C and C++ out of ISO.

I would argue that the structural problem is an underlying cause. So it won't be the proximate cause, but when you dig deeper, when you keep asking like a five year old, "But why?" the answer is ultimately ISO's structure and nothing to do with Bjarne's language in particular.

Hence the concern for the non-language but still deeply technical RISC-V standardization.

But isn't RISC-V just a standard? ISO will decide what is RISC-V and what isn't. Then its complicated process will become an obstacle to innovation.

> It's hard to see how an organization that standardizes screws and plugs could possibly be qualified to develop ISAs.

you my friend have not delved into the rabbithole that is standardisation organizations.

ISO and IEC goes so far beyond bolts and screws it's frankly dizzying how faar reaching their fingers are in our society.

As for why, the top comment explained it well; There is a movement to block Risk-v adoption in the US for some geopolitical shenanigans. A standardisation with a trusted authority may help.

FTA: “Since 1987, JTC 1 has overseen the standardization of many foundational IT standards, including JPEG, MPEG, and the C and C++ programming languages”

Compared to ISO, RISC-V International has almost no experience maintaining standards.

Even if you think that’s isn’t valuable, the reality is that there is prestige/trustworthiness associated with an “ISO standard” sticker, similar to how having a “published in prestigious journal J” stickers gives scientific papers prestige/trustworthiness.

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