More countries lend support to ODF

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 27 Nov 2007 at 12:52

A trio of countries has joined the growing number supporting the Open Document Format (ODF), according to the ODF Alliance. The Netherlands, South Africa and Korea have recently adopted the ODF standard for governmental use.

"The Dutch Cabinet is actively speeding up the migration to open standards and open-source software," says a statement from the Dutch government.

"A wide range of actions has been set in progress in order to reach a situation in 2011 by which open standards and open source software are 'business as usual'. Within this context, the introduction of the Open Document Format for use by government and the public sector in The Netherlands fits well."

The ODF Alliance says the endorsements are a measure of the format's progress. "This has been an incredibly successful year for ODF by any measure, with a record number of governments taking steps to adopt ODF," says Marino Marcich, managing director, ODF Alliance.

"We congratulate the Netherlands, South Africa, and Korea for recognising ODF, each in its own way, and look forward to the movement's continued momentum in the New Year."

Blow for Microsoft

The growing international support for ODF could be considered bad news for Microsoft, which is currently attempting to have its rival OOXML format fast-tracked as an ISO standard.

However, ODF doesn't necessarily replace Microsoft's OOXML format. France has made a concerted effort to use the ODF as the standard format for governmental use, switching employees to the Open Office suite, but many other countries that have registered their support for ODF are still using Microsoft standards as well.

Microsoft is struggling to get OOXML certified as an ISO standard. Earlier this year a fast-track application for format was rejected, with the BSI pointing out some concerns.

"In the UK, a technical panel comprising large and small companies, public sector organisations, user groups, academia and government, was specially created to review ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML [the 6,000 page specification]," BSI said in a statement at the time.

"It identified a number of technical issues in the document which need to be addressed before the UK can approve ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML as an International Standard.

Earlier this month, Microsoft revealed that the company had received 3,500 "comments" about its OOXML specification, in an exclusive interview with PC Pro.