Formula subcommittee - olive branch?

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>]

FYI, I've had a private email asking if in the future there might be
interest in our working on spreadsheet formulas somehow
with ECMA and/or the folks involved with EOOX.

I can't speak for anyone else.  I can say that for myself, I would
be happy to work with ANY party, ESPECIALLY any implementor,
that is interested in creating an open standard.  On the other hand,
it seems unwise to sit in a "wait forever" mode for
something that may never occur. ECMA has not committed
to doing this work, to my knowledge, and the OpenDocument TC
members see a need to start NOW.

But how about this - as part of the establishment of the
formula subcommittee, make a point to invite all implementors
to join the TC subcommittee, and that you'd like all to join.
You'd mean that anyway, but it'd be a nice gesture; is there
any objection to making an invitation as a formal announcement?

If there are other ways to extend an olive branch, or make it
easier to bring those people into a process, that'd be great too.
If anyone has any ideas on that score, please voice them.

This way OASIS can continue at top speed, but if others want
to join the standardization process later on, they can do so.
I don't know if we can make the standardization stars align,
but I would be DELIGHTED if it could happen somehow.
If everyone could agree on ONE spec that'd be great.

--- David A. Wheeler