JLP’s Blog

Some of you may know a man who goes by the name of Peter Quinn. He became famous during the debates that followed the brave and smart decision of the state of Massachusetts (USA) to use only open standards and formats. They chose OpenDocument Format (ODF) and PDF and some companies didn’t like that. Increasing use of open formats for documents would very well mean they would loose the monopoly position they maintain with the help of their closed formats. Those companies tried every (dirty) trick to prevent adoption of open formats and as a result Peter Quinn also resigned from the position of CIO of Massachusetts. Fortunately the plan to move to open formats still stands strong. Peter Quinn just had a presentation at SCALE 4x and you can download his presentation where you can read more about the above mentioned events and ODF.

I’ve also read a great article about ODF at Groklaw. It was written by David A. Wheeler and tries to clearly answer the question: Is OpenDocument an Open Standard? He checked out several definitions of open standards and checked if OpenDocument Format meets the definitions. And the very clear answer is: Yes, OpenDocument is open standard!

Tags: opendocument, odf, standards, office