Laws tend to be general. For example a lay might say something like: Communication between two parties needs to be secure.
Now, what is secure, how do you define it? Like tomte said you have the burden of proof. One way is to say you followed a standard because standards are formulated by "experts" and thus your communication is clear.
An alternative is to develop your own secure algorithm - you might have to proof this at some point that it really is secure.
If a law says that all communication needs to be encrypted using technique x, then it will be outdated as soon as this technique is broken. Thus a law specifying that communication should be secure is something that can last much longer
Besides, this information is very technical and not in the slightest consumer oriented! After looking at the first document I certainly don't want to read further. That is why we have standard bodies, law makers and journalists to do this stuff for is. I don't think that a raw dump would help anybody
No, actually, you don't have the burden of proof, that's the point. If that was the case, following a US standard, say, should probably be as good a defence as following an EU standard. Instead, one particular proprietary standard is exempted from you having to prove anything, except for the fact that you do follow the standard. That special treatment is what is being criticized here.
Also, laws don't cease to be laws because they are not consumer oriented. Your argument applied analogously essentially would mean that it would be perfectly fine for all laws concerning the taxation of corporations to be secret because those are highly technical and not consumer oriented. These dumps are not meant for consumers, but for people who are required to follow the rules set by those standards.
I agree the situation is not ideal, and I applaud any effort to try to show that the way the law and the standard are intertwined make for a de facto incorporation of the standard into law (which would mean the standard would have to be accessible for free).
It is not clear from the article that that's going on, and it's also not made clear why starting with a copyright violation is a good way to bring about this change. To me, this reeks much more of trying to get publicity than actually trying to change things.
The problem is that the article has its facts all mixed up and glosses over the central point, which is the difference between a law and a standard. Without getting that point across, this is just publicity for its own sake.
I think you got it all backwards. They are contesting that very distinction, so their position is that there is none, so why should they write as if there was?
Their stance is that the other side's distinction is merely in their choice of words, but the facts of the situation are such that the standard plays the same role as a law would, and as such choosing to call it a "standard" rather than a "law" only serves to confuse people, not to describe the actual situation, and so they instead choose words that accurately and clearly describe things as they are from their perspective.
