Monday, 26 June 2006

OpenDocument Gaining New Grounds In Belgium, India

OpenDocument made additional strides in establishing itself this week, as the Belgian government certified the OASIS format as the only acceptable standard for internal documents. In addition, OpenDocument backers are promoting the format in India at the IIT Delhi conference. The proposal to standardize on OpenDocument was approved Friday by Belgium's Council of Ministers, according to a report in ZDNet Belgium. Beginning in 2008, all documents sent between government services must be in ODF, after the final proposal removed Microsoft's Office Open XML formats as a viable option.

OpenDocument was accepted in draft form by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in May. Microsoft has submitted its new Office format to European standards body Ecma for certification, but because no product currently on the market supports Office Open XML, Belgium dropped it from consideration. The push to move toward a ratified standard comes as governments begin to worry about document retention, with most communication turning electronic. Because OpenDocument is an open standard developed by a number of different companies and not owned by a single organization, its backers say there is no threat to being locked into proprietary software.