OpenForum Europe Welcomes Announcement from ISO

Open Document format (ODF) is to be recognised as an international standard

OpenForum Europe strongly welcomes the news that ISO has formally voted for Open Document format (ODF) to be recognised as an international standard. The decision confirms ODF as a key component for the future in the public and private sector. ODF is vitally important in ensuring that valuable data is not lost from organisations due to incompatibility with different systems. Nowhere is this more visible than the public sector and national government, which are responsible for maintaining the nation’s inheritance for future citizens.

OFE calls upon every European National Government to act now to formally adopt ODF as the recognised open standard for data formats and to take practical action to implement this. OFE has in the past been critical of Europe in lagging behind the rest of the world in adoption of ODF, for example the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will be seeking assurance from the European Commission on the steps it will now be taking to provide leadership to Member States.

OFE equally calls upon the ICT industry to respond by incorporating ODF as a supported format in all its applications and delivered solutions. Notably OFE calls upon Microsoft, as the dominant office system supplier, to immediately announce support for ODF in future versions of Microsoft Office. Anything less than 100% support, and a continuation of the lack of compatibility between Microsoft and ODF, will raise real questions on the validity of Microsoft's declared support for 'Openness'.

Lock in to solutions from a proprietary supplier is seen to be the single largest inhibitor to Open Choice and delivery of the European i2010 plan, and OFE has already announced that it believes up to 90 % of public sector organisations in the UK have unwittingly fallen foul of this issue.

OFE, alongside the Institute of IT Training, are tackling this problem with the announcement last month of 'Certified Open' (TM), a certification scheme to validate the openness of products and solutions, to ensure inter-operability. This is being trialled in the UK Local Government , and was developed with the support of Open Source Academy, the UK Government sponsored project on use of Open Source. With the announcement by ISO, Certified Open will now be enhanced to specifically check on the use of open standards for Document formats.

OFE will continue to act as a full supporter of ODF within its championship of Open Choice and Competition, and will continue to offer full support to the ODF Alliance.

Links: ODF Alliance

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