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OpenDocument or ODF, short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open format for saving and exchanging office documents such as memos, reports, books, spreadsheets, databases, charts, and presentations. This standard was developed by the OASIS industry consortium and based upon the XML format originally created by OpenOffice.org. ODF was approved as an OASIS standard on May 1, 2005, and was approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard (ISO/IEC 26300) on May 8, 2006. • The OpenDocument standard has been developed by a variety of organizations and is publicly accessible. This means it can be implemented into any system, be it open source or a closed proprietary product, without royalties. The OpenDocument format is intended to provide an open alternative to proprietary document formats so organizations and individuals can avoid being locked in to a single vendor. ODF is the first standard for editable office documents that has been vetted by an independent recognized standardization body.
Specifications The most common file extensions used for OpenDocument documents are: An OpenDocument file can be either a simple XML file that uses For a comparison with the Microsoft Office Open XML formats, see Comparison of OpenDocument and Microsoft Office Open XML formats. There is a comprehensive set of sample documents in OpenDocument Format available. The whole test suite is available under a Creative Commons license. Standardization The OpenDocument standard was developed by the OASIS industry consortium. The standardization process involved the developers of many office suites or related document systems. The first official OASIS meeting to discuss the standard was December 16, 2002; OASIS approved OpenDocument as an OASIS standard on May 1, 2005. OASIS submitted the ODF specification to ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) on November 16, 2005, under Publicly Available Specification (PAS) rules. After a six-month review period, on May 3, 2006 OpenDocument unanimously passed their six-month FDIS ballot in JTC1, with broad participation,• after which the OpenDocument specification was "approved for release as an ISO and IEC International Standard" under the name ISO/IEC 26300. • After responding to all written ballot comments, and a 30-day default ballot, the OpenDocument International Standard will go on to publication in ISO. Further standardization work with OpenDocument includes: Software A number of existing applications and programs (both FLOSS and proprietary) support OpenDocument. Two of the most prominent office suites supporting OpenDocument are OpenOffice.org and KOffice. Since there are a number of independent implementations of the ODF standard, of various degrees of maturity and completness, it is not surprising that interoperability testing is needed. The OpenDocument Fellowship has performed some tests and scored the various implementations.• The OpenDocument Foundation and other third parties have also announced development of plugins and filters to support OpenDocument on Microsoft's products • • Although Microsoft Office does not support OpenDocument, Microsoft now finances a project on sourceforge by several of its partners to create a plugin for Microsoft Office called Open XML Translator that will be freely available under an open-source BSD license. The project plans to release a complete version of this software by the end of 2006 for Microsoft Word and early in 2007 for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Powerpoint • A prototype of the MS Open XML translator for Microsoft Word is currently available on sourceforge. Accessibility A primary concern is whether OpenDocument is accessible to those with disabilities. There are two issues: does the specification support accessibility, and are implementations accessible? The specification of OpenDocument has undergone an extensive accessibility review, and a few additions were made to OpenDocument 1.1 to improve accessibility. Many of the components it is built on (such as SMIL for audio and multimedia and SVG for vector graphics) have already gone through the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative processes. Some argue that open formats like OpenDocument are necessary for true accessibility . The claim is that OpenDocument has an accessibilty advantage over proprietary file formats such as those of Microsoft Office, which generally do not have public peer review of accessibility issues and cannot be implemented by all parties . OpenDocument is fully specified in a public document without any implementation barriers, allowing anyone to create the software necessary for those with disabilities. Licensing The OpenDocument specification is available for free download and use. Key contributor Sun Microsystems * made an irrevocable intellectual property covenant, the first in its class, providing all implementers with the guarantee that the specification contains no material that necessitates licensing from any author. Reciprocal, royalty-free licensing terms are being promoted by some standards developing organizations, such as the W3C and OASIS, as a method for avoiding conflict over intellectual property concerns while still promoting innovation. See also software patent debate. In short, anyone can implement OpenDocument, without restraint. Both proprietary and open source software programs implement the format; see OpenDocument software. Promotion The work of OASIS includes promoting the OpenDocument Format through the OASIS OpenDocument Adoption Technical Committee. The OpenOffice.org Project promotes the OpenDocument Format, as it is used as the default file format in the Open Source office suite. Several groups and companies support the OpenDocument Format. For example: Adoption One objective of open formats like OpenDocument is to guarantee long-term access to data without legal or technical barriers, and some governments have come to view open formats as a public policy issue. OpenDocument is intended to be an alternative to proprietary formats, including the popular, undocumented DOC, XLS, and PPT formats used by Microsoft Office. Another perceived competitor to OpenDocument is the Microsoft Office Open XML format. However, on 6th July 2006 Microsoft announced that it would finance the creation of another plugin to allow Office to save to ODF. The OpenDocument Foundation has created a plug-in which is already being tested by governments as a component of adoption strategies. The plug-ins will allow continued use of legacy software while transitioning to full OpenDocument support. European countries and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in particular have been examining the ramifications of selecting a document format. It was also announced on 31 March, 2006 that the National Archives of Australia had settled on OpenDocument as their choice for a cross-platform/application document format. Other governments around the world are also considering the adoption of the format. In October 2006, a report commissioned by the French prime minister Dominique de Villepin recommends that all French government publications be made available in OpenDocument Format. The Belgian federal administration plans to exchange all documents in ODF from September 2008. All federal administrations should be able to read ODF documents one year earlier. * See also Standard office document formats debate for more information about the ongoing debate over adoption of OpenDocument and competing formats. See also Organizations Deployment in Europe Software | ||||||||
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