{"id":227,"date":"2007-03-02T13:50:06","date_gmt":"2007-03-02T21:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=227"},"modified":"2007-03-02T13:50:06","modified_gmt":"2007-03-02T21:50:06","slug":"standards-california-enters-odf-versus-ooxml-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/standards-california-enters-odf-versus-ooxml-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Standards: California Enters ODF versus OOXML Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new generation of document creation applications is again sparking a war of competing file formats.\u00a0 Microsoft’s .doc Word format won the first round and has remained for some time the most popular file format and de facto standard for exchanging editable document files.\u00a0 But widespread acceptance of XML<\/a> is forcing that to change.<\/p>\n

Governments worldwide\u00a0have expressed their\u00a0desire\u00a0to create and exchange documents that are based on internationally agreed open standards.\u00a0 Governments want to be able to create documents that can be distributed to anyone for over long periods of time.\u00a0 Many people have identified an XML-based open format as\u00a0the best available current option for ensuring long-term document retention and access.<\/p>\n

The OASIS<\/a> Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF<\/a>) was created as an XML document file format.\u00a0 ODF is a published ISO<\/a> and IEC<\/a> standard, approved in May 2006,\u00a0and\u00a0it has\u00a0been heavily promoted<\/a> by Sun, IBM, and Google.<\/p>\n

The ODF Alliance cites the following benefits of ODF:<\/p>\n

Access<\/strong>.\u00a0 As an open standard, documents in the format should be available in the future by anyone and at any time.<\/p>\n

Choice<\/strong>.\u00a0 An Open Standard for the file format allows many vendors to create office suites and applications around the same standard.\u00a0 It promotes competition and choice.<\/p>\n

Innovation<\/strong>.\u00a0 An open standard encourages vendors to compete and to foster innovation.<\/p>\n

Massachussetts has already adopted ODF as a state standard and now mandates that all state agency documents conform.\u00a0 In early February, Texas<\/a> and Minnesota<\/a> introduced<\/a> bills that would mandate the use of an open XML-based file format that is “interoperable among diverse internal and external platforms and applications; fully published and available royalty-free; implemented by multiple vendors; and controlled by an open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard”.<\/p>\n

Today California is also beginning to consider<\/a> legislation that would require state agencies to adopt an open document format for all document records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft is fighting back and has created a new file format for their just-released Office 2007 product that is positioned in direct response to ODF.\u00a0 Office 2007\u00a0introduces the OOXML (Office Open XML) file format.\u00a0 OOXML is a 6039 page specification that was accepted by Ecma International<\/a> in December.\u00a0 Microsoft has gotten some support for the format from Intel, Apple, Canon, Novell and The US Library of Congress.<\/p>\n

But Microsoft is in trouble with acceptance of OOXML as a standard.\u00a0 It\u00a0did receive\u00a0a favorable adoption vote by Ecma last December, but then it advanced to a review stage called the contradiction phase.\u00a0 A contradiction could be voiced if a country feels that the standard would disrupt another one, or redefine another one, or incorrectly use another one.\u00a0 Countries have a short period after the adoption vote to voice ‘contradictions’.<\/p>\n

Twenty countries responded<\/a> during this phase to raise contractions.\u00a0 They include:\u00a0 Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, and the UK.\u00a0 Next there will be a vote of acceptance from all countries.\u00a0 Of the 30 countries carrying some weight in the vote, 16 have raised<\/a> contraditions.\u00a0\u00a0It\u00a0seems unlikely, given the number of countries that have voiced concern, that OOXML could be accepted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft already has a plugin<\/a> to allow ODF compatibility from Microsoft Office.\u00a0 And if the pressure continues, Microsoft may find itself in a position where it will need to support ODF “out-of-the-box”.<\/p>\n

\"Digg<\/a><\/div>
\"Reddit<\/a><\/div>
\"Stumble<\/a><\/div>
\"Buzz<\/a><\/div>
\"Vote<\/a><\/div>
\"Share<\/a><\/div>
\"Bookmark<\/a><\/div>
\"Kick<\/a><\/div>
\"Shout<\/a><\/div>
\"Share<\/a><\/div>
\"Bookmark<\/a><\/div>
\"Post<\/a><\/div>
\"Google<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new generation of document creation applications is again sparking a war of competing file formats.\u00a0 Microsoft’s .doc Word format won the first round and has remained for some time the most popular file format and de facto standard for…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-content-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}