intertwingly

It’s just data

Office XML at ECMA


David Berlind: The question that must then be asked once the ECMA technical committee (TC) overseeing the Office XML Reference is officially formed is, to what extent other organizations — Sun and IBM for example — can not only join the TC, but influence the overall outcome as well.

IBM could join now.  As near as I can tell, Sun no longer is a member of ECMA, but presumably could rejoin at at any time.

I participated in ECMA TC39 from around 1999 to 2001, first as editor of ECMAScript, then as convener of the CLI, and member of C# technical groups.  But my most important contribution was to recruit Miguel de Icaza (now of Novel) to join ECMA.

In contrast to the IETF, and apparently more like OASIS, ECMA is organized around member companies rather than individuals.  Like the IETF, ECMA discourages voting in technical groups, and instead prefers consensus.  Like OASIS, most of the work is done in face to face meetings.

Like IETF, the path to credibility in the technical committee is with working code.

Judging by how we were able to process the massive CLI specs, completing a task such as an Office XML in about eighteen months is doable, if but an exhausting forced march for the participants.  However, this presumes that the specs don’t contain any obvious vendor specific aspects or aren’t significantly underspecified.

My participation was technical.  In technical groups we did not cover legal aspects such as licensing.