More from Cullen Langford....

Walt- I don't think that ISA can spend any of those intellectual property rights, those support the standard, not ISA. If the ISA could collect license fees for these rights then the game would be far different. As it is, ISA is lucky to sell more than a couple of copies of these standards. I was of course just pulling you leg when suggesting that the magazines should contribute, even though you make your living selling your writings about the topic. I do note that some publishers support product testing in order to sell magazines about products...... There was a great deal of discussion about testing in SP50 but I never heard any suggestion that ISA could or would cover the cost. There was talk about how the products could be tested for compatibility and if we should develop the guidelines. Each vendor did their own testing and in each case they reported that their products were wonderful. I have to think that testing existing commercial products now won't help anything. Honeywell has done testing and so has Emerson or they would not be in the field test situation today. I don't think that any standards committee is going to support R&D in order to build a standard. We used Penn State long ago for research into control valve noise prediction but no one was fighting about that. I have to agree with Dick Caro that SP100 does not have the right to pick an existing commercial product. Especially since none seem to be complete at this time. The temptation exists and the major vendors will suggest that as the solution. SP50 proved how that will fail because the "loser" will fight this strongly. If the user community can band together and hold the line for developing the best compromise standard based on the best thinking and identified specific requirements, and not just buy into the nicest looking present product then there may be some hope. The market can select and determine a standards, but the process is messy. The many headed monster IEC fieldbus situation exists because IEC allowed some extremely doubtful ballot procedures and the US was unable to overcome this. The world of international standards is not a nice one. The US is far too innocent and law abiding to be successful in these fights. Regards, cullen langford I believe that Jose Gutierrez is in fact correct that what made 802.15.4 successful is the testing that led to a compromise technical specification and a standard. I stand by my suggestion. I believe I speak for the majority of the end user community. Walt