| New OASIS committee to push ODF |
Mar. 14, 2006
International standards body OASIS Tuesday announced the formation of the ODF Adoption Committee, a body with one mission: to promote widespread use of the OASIS Standard OpenDocument Format. The new committee plans to improve demand for ODF-conforming products by increasing public awareness of the benefits of open format documents.
This should eventually result in a greater choice of tools and platforms, and in expanding the ODF community of users, suppliers, and developers, OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) said.
To accomplish its mission, the new committee will be overseeing the creation of white papers, FAQs, overview documents, case studies, and other educational materials to be distributed to corporations and the media. The group will serve as a community-building resource by providing ODF information through the OASIS and XML.org websites, collateral, newsletters, webinars, conferences, and other outreach venues.
The committee will also host proof-of-concept demonstrations to highlight use cases of ODF with XML schemas and industry vocabularies that can be integrated with Web services, OASIS said. Its first meeting will be March 28, 2006 by teleconference. As with all OASIS projects, archives of the committee's work will be accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS will host an open mail list for public comment.
"Users have a right to retain control"
"The life of a document may far exceed that of a particular software product or vendor. Users have a right to retain control over their work -- no matter when their documents were created or what tool was used to create them. Open standards in general, and ODF in particular, can help ensure that right," said Don Harbison of IBM, convener and proposed chair of the new committee.
"Our team will work to help users understand what's really at stake here and the advantages ODF offers for platform- and application-independent documents," Harbison added.
ODF was approved as an OASIS Standard in May 2005 and was submitted by OASIS to the ISO/IEC JTC1 (International Organization for Standardization International Electrotechnical Commission's Joint Technical Committee) for further approval as a de jure standard.
ODF gained significant momentum last September, when the state of Massachusetts announced that it will use only nonproprietary document formats in state-affiliated offices effective Jan. 1, 2007. This policy will effectively make Microsoft Office ineligible for state office use, since it creates Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other documents that are accessible only by Microsoft products.
Will work closely with technical committee
ODF is maintained and advanced by the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee, which was formed in November 2002. The new OASIS ODF Adoption Committee will work closely with OASIS's technical committee to align market-based requirements and help guide future enhancements to the standard.
The ODF Adoption Committee also will coordinate its efforts with other ODF promotional groups around the world, including the OpenDocument Foundation, which has joined the ODF Adoption Committee, and the recently formed ODF Alliance, which intends to focus efforts on influencing public policy through governments, OASIS said.
"The mission of OASIS extends beyond development to encompass convergence and adoption," said James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at OASIS. "By promoting ODF awareness and education through this new committee, participants maximize their collective resources within the security of the OASIS open process."
Members of the OASIS ODF Adoption Committee include representatives of IBM, Novell, and Sun Microsystems, as well as government agencies that include the National Informatics Center of the Government of India, the Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration, and other organizations. Participation is open to all, OASIS said.
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