in070172
From: WebMail [junk@machine-inc.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:08 AM
To: Garner, Jennifer
Cc: bryden@iso.org; Scully, Henrietta; Desautels, Sara; Rajchel, Lisa
Subject: Craig Nelson Contribution in Response to JTC 1 N 8455
- 30 Day Review for Fast Track Ballot ECMA-376 | ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Office
Open XML File Formats
To whom it may concern,
I am a IT professional and would like to express my concerns over the Ecma
376 Office Open XML as a possibility for ISO standard.
I am not very good at expressing myself, so below, I have copied a few details
(with permission) to best outline my concerns on this issue. I completely
agree with the items listed below and wish you to know that these exactly
match my concerns on this matter.
Begin copy>
Earlier this month ECMA International submitted a standard for "fast-track"
ISO approval. That is the "Ecma 376 Office Open XML"
standard. (ISO/IEC DIS 29500)
Ecma-376 is a standard for "word-processing documents, presentations, and
spreadsheets" which overlaps completely with an existing, approved standard
ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (OpenDocument (ODF)). Therefore it conflicts directly
with ISO's goal of having one standard for any area.
Furthermore, this specification is so complex (>6,000 pages) and vendor-specific
that it can only be successfully implemented by Microsoft Office (the application
on which it is modelled).
Ecma 376 also violates section 2.14 of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, in
that not all of what it takes to implement the standard is covered by the
licensing conditions offered by Microsoft.
The numerous concerns over Ecma 376, as pertaining to ISO approval, are summarized
on this page:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/EOOXML_objections. The page lists many contradictions
in Ecma 376 as defined by the ISO rules.
The initial review period ends in two weeks, on February 5th. If none of
the "P-Members" of the ISO/IEC JTC1 (Joint Technical Committee 1) raise a
"contradiction", the specification will go through the "fast-track"
process towards ISO approval.
I believe, and I hope that you will agree, that this standard should not
be allowed "fast-track" approval. Rather it should be remanded to Ecma International
for: (i) harmonization with ISO/IEC 26300:2006 and numerous other standards
and (ii) development of more suitable intellectual property documents.
<End copy
Sincerely,
Craig Nelson
USA