SAM Standards Development - Why Does It Take So Long?

ISO standards are developed by volunteers and the structure of the organizations managing standards development is hierarchical and very structured. The individuals who helped with the development of the 19770-2 (SWID tag) standard were volunteers who participated as part of an "other working group" (OWG). 
The 19770-2 OWG reports into Working Group 21 (WG21) - the working group tasked with the development of SAM standards. WG21 had its interim meeting in Reading England the week of Oct 26, 2009. It was clear at the interim meeting that the passage of the 19770-2 standard as development of other SAM standards is gaining significant interest from the market. These standards help all member of the SAM eco-system to reduce costs, improve service and make license management processes much more transparent.
The image below provides an idea of the structure of the standards development hierarchy as it relates to SAM standards (boxes with shaded backgrounds are part of the hierarchy of SAM standards):
 
 
What people often are not aware of when it comes to ISO/IEC standards development process is the significant amount of peer review process done with the national bodies from every nation involved at a particular level of the development. This is one reason ISO standards take some time to develop – they go through a significant vetting and validation process. In the case of the ISO/IEC 19770-2, the drafts were sent out for review to the national bodies of up to 48 different countries. 
The final vote on the ISO/IEC 19770-2 final draft international standard (FDIS) resulted in unanimous approval. This was due to the additional validation the 19770-2 OWG did to work with each and every individual who submitted comments to ensure their comments were handled appropriately. Often, with a standard of this length, there are also numerous editorial comments, but in the case of the FDIS vote, there was only one comment – it related to an appendix reference that was not properly converted by the PDF conversion utility.
Dave Bicket (convener of WG21 – the working group developing SAM standards) has written a few articles on the process of standards development. For additional information on how standards are created, please read his papers.  You can also visit www.19770.org - the official website for WG21 development efforts.