in070183
From: Michael Shuler [mshuler@rackspace.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 2:23 PM
To: ISOTeam-ANSI; Desautels, Sara; Scully, Henrietta; Garner, Jennifer
Cc: bryden@iso.org
Subject: Michael Shuler 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
Dear Sir or Madam,
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 proposed 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 modeled).
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 above 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.
Kind Regards,
Michael Shuler
Systems Engineer
Rackspace Managed Hosting
http://www.rackspace.com/