International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international non-governmental organization, composed of representatives of national standards bodies, that produces world-wide industrial and commercial standards.

See also standardization.

ISO cooperates closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which is responsible for standardization of electrical equipment.

It is a common misconception that ISO stands for International Standards Organization, or something similar. ISO is not an acronym; it comes from the Greek word iso, meaning equal. In English its name is International Organization for Standardization, while in French it is called Organisation Internationale de Normalisation; to use an acronym would result in different acronyms in English (IOS) and French (OIN), thus the founders of the organization chose ISO as the universal short form of its name.

See also: List of ISO standards

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The term "ISO" in the context of software distribution refers to a disk image in the ISO 9660 format and is pronounced "eye-so".