OOXML [was Re: GNOME Foundation Board Meeting Minutes :: 7/6/07]

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

On 6/10/07, Luis Villa <luis tieguy org> wrote:
> On 6/10/07, Jody Goldberg <jody gnome org> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 10, 2007 at 08:18:54PM -0400, Luis Villa wrote:
> > > On 6/10/07, Glynn Foster <Glynn Foster sun com> wrote:
> > > > 1) ECMA
> > > >
> > > >    We have the opportunity of joining ECMA as a non-profit
> > > >    member. Jody has expressed an interest in being a representative
> > > >    for GNOME, and suggested it would also be good to get someone
> > > >    there from Abiword.
> > > >
> > > >    ACTION: Behdad to contact Jody about the ECMA membership application
> > > >            and find a good candidate from Abiword to attend. Behdad to
> > > >            work on getting a press release for our membership.
> > >
> > > What would our purpose be there?
> >
> > As a non-profit we (GNOME) would not have voting privileges.
> > The membership will serve as a mechanism to allow interested
> > foundation members to join ECMA committees.  I'm advocating this in
> > relation to ECMA376/TC45 aka MS OfficeOpen XML.  Committee members
> > have the ability to request clarifications and suggest improvements
> > in the text of the specification.  For anyone implementing parts of
> > this format this is a golden chance to get enough documentation to
> > facilitate interoperability.
>
> Seems reasonable.
>
> Of course, I'd be more comfortable with it if we put out a press
> release saying something to the effect of 'we see no way to avoid
> implementing OOXML without screwing our users, so we're joining ECMA
> to make sure it sucks as little as possible. All other things being
> equal, we'd much prefer to implement a spec that has a much better
> patent grant, was developed through a more public process, uses open
> standards like mathml, etc., but since MS has a dominant market
> position, we don't have much of a choice in the matter.'

So, uh... this apparently didn't happen, and now we're getting flamed
(rightfully) for appearing to give a stamp of approval to a deeply
flawed standard. So... when is the board making this happen?

Luis