Texas and Minnesota considering Open Document Format
The US states Texas and Minnesota will consider adopting the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard file format for government documents. Legislative bills proposing ODF have been introduced by senators in both states. Massachusetts decided to standardise on ODF in September 2005.
Both bills propose the use of an document format fully published and available royalty-free and that can be implemented multiple vendors. The standard also should be controlled by an open industry organisation. The Texas bill describes an open format, "fully and independently implemented by multiple software providers on multiple platforms without any intellectual property reservations for necessary technology."
Adoption of ODF by the two states would strengthen the support for this recent ISO and Oasis standard. Ranked by population Texas is the second largest US state, with 23.5 million inhabitants. Minnesota has five million inhabitants, Massachusetts 6.4 million.
Earlier this month, twenty countries filed objections against Microsoft's Open XML standard (Ooxml) with the ISO standardisation organisation. This means ISO recognition of Ooxml is delayed by at least three months. Microsoft had submitted its standard for a fast track process.
© European Communities 2007
Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.
The views expressed are not an official position of the European Commission.
Disclaimer
More information:
Document Actions
