Introducing NSB

[Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@guppylake.com>]

Well, I guess I'll jump in....  I'm Nathaniel Borenstein, and I am a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the Open Document community, but I hope I can be helpful.  I've been involved in standards work for a long time now -- most notably as a primary author of the MIME standard -- and am currently in charge of open standards work for the division of IBM that used to be called Lotus.  (Now we call it the WPLC division, because that's so much more memorable. :-)

Anyway, I've been at IBM/Lotus for three years now, during which time I have been an internal advocate for IBM jumping onto the ODF bandwagon.  This year, when we finally did so, I became the first of what are now three IBM representatives on the OASIS TC.  I don't ever expect to rival most of the other TC members in the depth of my understanding of the standard, but I am trying to help bridge the gap between the OASIS TC and the growing number of people (at IBM and elsewhere) who are working on the political side of the larger Open Document movement.  Thus, for example, I am currently working on gearing up efforts to make ODF more acceptable to the accessibility community.  Governments are highly sensitive to the needs of the disabled, which makes the accessibility issue critical to getting governments behind our efforts.

And I, too, am looking forward to the wider discussions that this list should enable!  -- Nathaniel

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