Aside from the security issue, it seems like an awful idea for a government (or governments, in this case) to say 'hey, you need to follow this standard for invoicing. But also, you have to pay to see the entire standard'.. almost feels like extortion a bit

The right to access standards that have been incorporated-by-reference into law is still being established by various countries' court systems.

For example, in the USA https://www.rcfp.org/briefs-comments/astm-v-upcodes-inc/

This is an especially hot topic in the EU in medical device regulations: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/insights-and-media/insights/b...

DIN is not a government; CEN is an NGO, too.

But yes, for commercial offers, presumption of conformity mean you have to pay for norms to adhere to law. Big fail.

Especially since non-commercial but persistent and public, not "for profit", is still surmised in e.g. warranty laws. (E.g. geschäftsmäßige Nutzung / usage with said two terms, even for F/LOSS)

> it seems like an awful idea for a government

You mean the government that’s already the tax authority for which you create and report invoices? I can promise you it’s a good thing. Electronic invoices are a lot easier for us (obviously since it’s just a click instead of a whole PDF operation). It also removes a whole bunch of possibilities for mistakes.

> you have to pay to see the entire standard

The article is wrong about that though, all technical docs are available via the europa portal and reference implementation examples.

To be clear: The ones who need to follow the standard (companies that create invoices) do not need access to the standard, only some supplier does. And there are a lot of things that the government requires that costs money - you could see it as another tax.

That said, I actually agree with you - it's crazy that we need to pay for a stupid standard document.