Comment by andrewaylett

The people requiring adherence to a specific standard are not the people who then need to pay to see what they're supposed to be adhering to :(.

Strictly, just because the standard costs money doesn't mean that the information within it is otherwise unavailable. The C++ spec is an amusing example of this: the actual spec costs $$$, but the final draft is freely available. I can't imagine they sell many copies. I know that back when I was employed to work on a C++ compiler I only had access to the draft.

If demonstrating conformance is important, I suspect that the cost of access to specifications is only going to be a small fraction of the cost of certification. And as I understand things, it's certification that's the target of charging for specifications.