As information exchange in and with public administrations is very often bound to documents, editing, archiving and exchange possibilities for documents are crucial for the optimum function of administrations, both in terms of practicality and cost.






Initiatives such as the PEGSCO Recommendations on Open Document Formats published by the IDABC Management Committee, demonstrate public administrations preference for "open" document exchange and storage formats that are subject to formal standardisation via international standardisation procedures.


 


The primary objectives of the Berlin event, held at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), were to:




• compile further input from Member State public administrations on their experiences and strategies on ODEF


• gather industry viewpoints on the initiatives relating to ODEF standardization and information on future standardisation developments


• provide a platform for exchange between stakeholders in public administrations and main industry players



The program of the workshop included, among other:




• 
  
  ODEF Strategies: Examples from European Administration
  
  


• 
  
  Practical Experiences with the implementation of ODEF
  
  


• 
  
  Report on ODEF-Standardisation activities
  
  


• 
  
   4 parallel sessions with participants 
  
  


• 
  
   A panel discussion with stakeholders 

There is nothing open about MOOXML, and it should have never made it to consideration as an international standard.

But one has to ask, what is up with Sun? The John Bosak comment is just as much cause for concern as the fact that the nations of the world would dare consider OOXML as an international standard. All i can say is that we've been had. Sun and Microsoft have worked us royally, and only now, at the last moment, does the fog of confusion clear and we can see it all.

Hi
Gary,

I am a technology journalist with Asia's ONLY
Linux-focused magazine, LINUX For You. I am working on a story
revolving the recent development of Microsoft supporting ODF Format.
I want to understand the equation of the whole development, would you
please help me understand:

Q1. What do
you think drove Microsoft to support the ODF format?

here
was strong consensus among Member State administrations on





• 
  the
  necessity to use ODEF

  
  

• 
  on
  "openness" being the basic criteria of ODEF
  

  
  

• 
  and
  resulting requirements towards industry players / consequences for
  public administrations

  
  

• 
  There
  is a general dissatisfaction with the perspective of having
  competing standards;

  
  

• 
  One
  format for one purpose: Administrations should be able to
  standardize (internally) on a minimal set of formats;

  
  

• 
  No
  incomplete implementations, no proprietary extensions;

  
  

• 
  Products
  should support all relevant standards and standards used should be
  supported by multiple products;

  
  

• 
  Conformance
  testing and document validation possibilities are needed -> in
  order to facilitate mapping / conversion;

  
  

• 
  Handle
  the legacy / safeguard accessibility

Microsoft trounces pro-ODF forces in state battles over open document formats

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June 03, 2007
(Computerworld)

Keeping it private

The other problem, Mathers said, was the jargon-laden disinformation that committee members felt they were being fed by lobbyists for both IBM and Microsoft. Although lobbyists would tell the committee one thing in private, they got cold feet when asked to verify the information publicly, under oath. "Suddenly, nobody wanted to sign witness affirmation forms and testify," he said.

That undermined the credibility of each side, but it particularly damaged the position of ODF proponents. After Wyne testified publicly that in Massachusetts, only a handful of computers had thus far been converted over to using ODF, IBM declined to dispute her claims, Mathers said -- despite having earlier given "gleaming" reports on the progress of ODF in Massachusetts. "That's when I really started to question the whole bill," he said.

A week or so ago, I published a podcast at IT Conversation with Scott Mace interviewing Gary Edwards about OpenDocument. Edwards is the president of the OpenDocument Foundation. OpenDocument Foundation is a non-profit that works to promote the OpenDocument file format–an XML file format for office documents.

There’s no question that businesses want an XML-based file format for office data. The question, naturally, is which XML-based file format. Microsoft has it’s own XML-based file format called OpenXML.