The adopted edition is the rule, and the subchapter contains exactly two departures from it. They sit in different rules, they belong to different people, and they point in opposite directions — which is why a licensee who half-remembers one of them will reach for the wrong one. Neither is a general license to choose an edition. Each is a narrow allowance attached to a particular situation, and outside that situation the edition named in 28 TAC § 34.607 governs.

The first belongs to people who are not licensed at all. 28 TAC § 34.604 makes professionally exempt individuals and organizations responsible for ensuring that planning and installation are performed according to the standards adopted in 28 TAC § 34.607 — “EXCEPT WHEN THE PLANNING AND INSTALLATION COMPLIES WITH A MORE RECENT EDITION of an adopted standard.” So an exempt party may work FORWARD of the adopted edition. The logic is easy to see once the direction registers: the state’s concern with an exempt party is that the work meets a recognized standard, and a later edition of the same document is not a lesser one.

The second belongs to licensed work and runs backward. 28 TAC § 34.616 requires the planning, installation and servicing of fire detection or fire alarm devices or systems, including monitoring equipment, to be performed according to the standards adopted in 28 TAC § 34.607 — “EXCEPT WHEN THE PLANNING AND INSTALLATION COMPLIES WITH AN EDITION OF THE STANDARD THAT HAS BEEN PREVIOUSLY ADOPTED BY THE POLITICAL SUBDIVISION in which the system is installed.” That one is not about the licensee’s judgment at all. It turns on what the city or county has adopted, which is a fact about the jurisdiction rather than a choice available on site. A firm crossing a county line may cross between editions with it.