Ecma TC45 liaison statement to SC 34/WG4 re WG4 business plan

[Isabelle Valet-Harper (LCA)]

Dear SC34/WG4 members,

Regarding the business plan as discussed by WG4, TC45 at its last meeting adopted the following liaison statement:
Ecma TC45 supports the development of a SC 34/WG4 business plan  to guide the ongoing work to maintain the Office OpenXML standard. The members of TC 45 believe that a business plan, consistent with the JTC 1 Directives, can provide important predictability and transparency to the work on Office Open XML  and publication of updates to ISO/IEC 29500 (and Ecma 376) by taking into account the market relevance of proposed developments,  and the need for stability of the standard and predictability of the new Editions. TC45 is willing to contribute to this effort. This will allow implementers and potential implementers of the Office OpenXML standard to adopt new versions of ISO/IEC 29500  (and Ecma 376) with reasonable expectations around the timing of future editions of the standard. It will also allow participants to focus their limited resources on the issues that are most impactful to the usefulness of the standard. Important elements of such a business plan could include (not necessarily in priority order):
1.       A target schedule for producing output documents
2.       A framework for prioritizing work on existing and future DRs
3.       A framework for prioritizing work on extensions and new proposals 
4.       A process for identifying resources to address DRs with target dates for action

Best regards

Isabelle