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10.24.2006

Tripping the ODF

Trans-European meeting of the working group ODF Alliance for support and implementation of Open Document Format took place this week in Brussels. Reports from different countries calls for help in various battlefields, starting with the open standards government issues for support the legislation and decision makers.

ODF is here, it's an ISO standard, it's supported in many applications. Publishing in ODF is the way of freedom. Freedom to choose application with what you want to view or edit it. Many European countries shares the vision of Interoperability, the doors are right here but the strong opposition is showing other doors, other steps. If we want to succeed in Interoperability we should support the publishing of ODF by our government. As they are doing in Belgium, ODF is going to be the main office document format for exchanging documents. The start is a bit slower, the reading part of the ODF should be possible by september of 2007 in all governmental organizations. By the same date in 2008 they should be able to edit it as well.

Further we go, the more we need. To help ODF movement we should try to help it in general, what about a ODF online validation check? Same as W3C consortium is doing the validation of html, css and other web standards. We should be able to check the real validity of the published ODF when somebody claims he have a open standard by ODF definition which is around 700 pages.

Isn't it all about knowing that after I die, my children can access my data I saved in ODF?

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