The International Organization for Standardization, widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial standards. It has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. While ISO defines itself as a non-governmental organization, its ability to set standards that often become law, either through treaties or national standards, makes it more powerful than most non-governmental organizations. In practice, ISO acts as a consortium with strong links to governments. The organization which today is known as ISO began in 1926 as the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA). This organization focused heavily on mechanical engineering. It was disbanded in 1942 during the second World War but was re-organized under the current name, ISO, in 1946.

Standardization process

A standard published by ISO/IEC is the last stage of a long process that commonly starts with the proposal of new work within a committee. Here are some abbreviations used for marking a standard with its status:

PWI - Preliminary Work Item
NP or NWIP - New Proposal / New Work Item Proposal (e.g., ISO/IEC NP 23007)
AWI - Approved new Work Item (e.g., ISO/IEC AWI 15444-14)
WD - Working Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC WD 27032)
CD - Committee Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC CD 23000-5)
FCD - Final Committee Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC FCD 23000-12)
DIS - Draft International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC DIS 14297)
FDIS - Final Draft International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC FDIS 27003)
PRF - Proof of a new International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC PRF 18018)
IS - International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007)

Abbreviations used for amendments:

NP Amd - New Proposal Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 15444-2:2004/NP Amd 3)
AWI Amd - Approved new Work Item Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 14492:2001/AWI Amd 4)
WD Amd - Working Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO 11092:1993/WD Amd 1)
CD Amd / PDAmd - Committee Draft Amendment / Proposed Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/CD Amd 6)
FPDAmd / DAM (DAmd) - Final Proposed Draft Amendment / Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003/FPDAmd 1)
FDAM (FDAmd) - Final Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/FDAmd 4)
PRF Amd - (e.g., ISO 12639:2004/PRF Amd 1)
Amd - Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Amd 1:2007
 

Other abbreviations:

TR - Technical Report (e.g., ISO/IEC TR 19791:2006)
DTR - Draft Technical Report (e.g., ISO/IEC DTR 19791)
TS - Technical Specification (e.g., ISO/TS 16949:2009)
DTS - Draft Technical Specification (e.g., ISO/DTS 11602-1)
PAS - Publicly Available Specification
TTA - Technology Trends Assessment (e.g., ISO/TTA 1:1994)
IWA - International Workshop Agreement (e.g., IWA 1:2005)
Cor - Technical Corrigendum (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Cor 1:2008)
Guide - a guidance to technical committees for the preparation of standards

International Standards are developed by ISO technical committees (TC) and subcommittees (SC) by a process with six steps:

Stage 1: Proposal stage
Stage 2: Preparatory stage
Stage 3: Committee stage
Stage 4: Enquiry stage
Stage 5: Approval stage
Stage 6: Publication stage

ISO document copyright

ISO documents are copyrighted and ISO charges for copies of most. ISO does not, however, charge for most draft copies of documents in electronic format. Although useful, care must be taken using these drafts as there is the possibility of substantial change before it becomes finalized as a standard. Some standards by ISO and its official U.S. representative (and the International Electrotechnical Commission's via the U.S. National Committee) are made freely available.

ISO has 163 national members, out of the 203 total countries in the world. ISO has three membership categories: Member bodies are national bodies that are considered to be the most representative standards body in each country. These are the only members of ISO that have voting rights. Correspondent members are countries that do not have their own standards organization. These members are informed about ISO's work, but do not participate in standards promulgation. Subscriber members are countries with small economies. They pay reduced membership fees, but can follow the development of standards. Participating members are called "P" members as opposed to observing members which are called "O" members.

Products named after ISO

The fact that many of the ISO-created standards are ubiquitous has led, on occasion, to common use of "ISO" to describe the actual product that conforms to a standard. Some examples of this are: CD images end in the file extension "ISO" to signify that they are using the ISO 9660 standard filesystem as opposed to another file system - hence CD images are commonly referred to as "ISOs". Virtually all computers with CD-ROM drives can read CDs that use this standard. Some DVD-ROMs also use ISO 9660 filesystems. Photographic film's sensitivity to light, its "film speed", is described by ISO 5800:1987. Hence, the film's speed is often referred to as its "ISO number."