TC46 in Cambridge

The initial meeting of Ecma TC46, the technical committee working on standardization of the XML Paper Specification format, met at Queens' College Cambridge for its initial meeting on Monday. I was there (to represent Microsoft), as were 23 other people representing 17 different organizations, including the chair (Global Graphics) & co-chair (Fuji Xerox). This meeting was administrative, with most of the time spent defining how the committee plans to address the work items defined in the charter, and working out things like the schedule of future meetings. It's in those meetings that we will be getting down to the detailed technical work.

It was nice to be in Cambridge again, even if it was raining and the visit was too short and too wet for even a quick punt. Queens' college was a great venue for the meeting — we met in the old Hall — built in 1449, which has to be one of the grander places in which I've sat for any kind of meeting. Many thanks to Martin Bailey for arranging this first meeting and for selecting such an interesting venue.

Although right now there is not much there, the Ecma page for TC46 activities will have more information on the committees activities and will be a good place to watch if you're interested in keeping up to date on progress made. You can also review the Presentation made to the Ecma General Assembly by Martin Bailey and Takashi Hashizume. It's also not too late to get involved, in addition to reviewing stuff posted on the Ecma site and giving feedback (once we've figured out the best way to do that), Ecma is always open to new members, whether for TC46 or any of the other areas that Ecma is involved in. See the 'How to Join Ecma' page, and note that although new memberships must be approved by the Ecma General Assembly (which meets twice a year), candidate members can start working in technical committees like TC46 immediately. While we work to set up the infrastructure for TC46, the best way to get in touch with the committee is to email Dr. Istvan Sebestyen (contact details at the bottom of the TC46 page).