Is it possible its different for DoD contractors? I ask because Lockheed in Sunnyvale took some heat (I believe a fine and a restriction on being able to bid on contracts for a period of time) for failing to use 'established industry practice' in the testing and delivery of what ever it was they were delivered. My neighbor at the time worked for them and recounted the gruesome (or in this case non-standard) details. I never really thought to question whether or not it was actually written that way, it just made sense that it would be. When I was with Intel and Intel was building milspec 8080s there were a list of standards that had to be met and all of the test equipment was calibrated based on that as well. Seemed like a pretty natural part of the government contracting business.
So you're saying that Contractors are under no obligation to meet standards? Or just that this contractor would be exempted? Or perhaps software in general would be exempted?
Contractors can certainly be under an obligation to meet standards, particularly when this is specified in the contract. However, there is no ISO standard that says "a program shall not reach five hundred million lines of code even if you include all the autogenerated XML and suchlike".
So you're saying that Contractors are under no obligation to meet standards? Or just that this contractor would be exempted? Or perhaps software in general would be exempted?
( Apparently NIST is involved somewhat : http://www.informationweek.com/government/enterprise-applica... )