The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.

If you ever wondered what group of morons decided things should work “this way”, the odds are good that it was some standards committee. Here are some of the web sites where you can look for standards you need to figure out how things work:

• freedesktop The freedesktop standards are almost always where things I find irritating are defined. This is the number one site to visit for intelligence gathering on the enemy :-). I've often considered building the potksedeerf linux distro which wouldn't follow any freedesktop standard.

  Search freedesktop with google.

• IETF The The Internet Engineering Task Force is where you will find all the details of virtually all the network protocols used to talk to servers. You want to talk to an IMAP mail server? The IETF is the place to start, etc.

  Search IETF with google.

• The Linux Foundation is an umbrella organization that includes several groups such as LSB (Linux Standard Base) and OpenPrinting

  Search The Linux Foundation with google.

• X.Org is where all the radical changes to X11 that make your life miserable originate. If the newest linux release broke your video card, the blame lies here :-).

  Search X.Org with google.