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Open Document Format Approved

Posted by timothy on from the file-formats-rule-the-world dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The OASIS Group announces that the third Committee Draft [PDF] of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 Specification has been approved as an OASIS Standard. The submission of the approved standard can be found at here.
The OpenDocument format is intended to provide an open alternative to proprietary document formats including the popular DOC, XLS, and PPT formats used by Microsoft Office. Organizations and individuals that store their data in an open format avoid being locked in to a single software vendor, leaving them free to switch software if their current vendor goes out of business or changes their software or licensing terms to something less favorable."

3 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Amazing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's amazing to see so many people already giving up before the fight has even started.

    Yes, everyone is aware of the stranglehold MS has on the market, but this new standard is exactly meant to fight this stranglehold. And I don't agree that MS has to come on board to make this a success.

    1. This gives all alternatives to MS Office an advantage over MS Office, which is of course a good thing.
    2. Now that it is a standard, what about governments requiring that the software they use be standard compatible?
    3. Even if MS themselves don't support it, how about third party verndors, or open source hackers developing a plugin for MS Office to support this format?

    To sum it up, I think it is a little more complex than you seem to think and the fight has only just started, so don't give up yet.

  2. Fasttrack it though ISO now ! by DV · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now will it be pushed though ISO (prefereably
    though a fasttrack). The ISO stamp carries far
    more weight for governements agencies and this
    could cange a lot of things. See for example
    Tim Bray's log on the subject
    http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/09/24/ SmartEC

    Daniel

    BTW: wasn't the September 2004 LSB spec supposed to be fasttracked though the ISO process too ?

  3. Recruitment agents and Word documents by jesterzog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Over this period, most of the time when I sent my resume out, the response-- even when the sent file was just an HTML file, that you double click and it opens in MSIE-- was "I can't figure out how to open your resume, do you have a .doc?"

    I'm in the process of looking for work now, and I've found that recruitment agents in particular tend to prefer Word documents over something like PDF or HTML.

    This isn't because they can't open the latter -- it's because they like to be able to easily edit them. When a recruitment agent hands your resume to a potential employer, they'll usually want to remove identifying information from your resume. This, of course, prevents the employer from approching you directly, in which case the recruitment agent might not get their commission.

    Granted that this isn't quite the same as not being able to open a resume at all, but recruitment agents in particular do often have an ulterior motive for wanting a Word document rather than a PDF, for instance.