in070174




From: Sara Desautels [sdesaute@ansi.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 8:26 AM
To: Rajchel, Lisa; Garner, Jennifer


Subject:   Matthew Clark 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



Lisa,

Here is another email regarding ECMA 376 fast track.  Apparently this concerned group has my contact as the previous SC 34 Secretariat.

Sara

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Clark [mailto:mclark@mclark.myftp.org]
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 7:50 PM
To: sdesaute@ansi.org
Subject: re OOXML standard

Dear Ms. Desautels

I am writing to express my concern about the OOXML proposed standard. It
appears to be not an open standard, but merely one for Microsoft
products. The myriad "standards" to cover legacy Microsoft products
pretty much invalidate it as a standard. 

For example, one could also propose many similar legacy features for
WordPerfect or WordStar.  However, that is not the purpose of a standard
format. It should not cater to a particular package but create a new
standard for cross-product interoperability.

Many regards,

Dr. Matthew Clark
324 Croton Road
Wayne, PA 19087