OpenDocument
Encyclopedia : O : OP : OPE : OpenDocument
The OpenDocument format (ODF), short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open document file 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. The ODF was approved as an OASIS standard on May 1, 2005 and a draft for the ISO/IEC 26300 was approved on May 3, 2006.
The OpenDocument standard has been developed by a variety of organizations and is publicly accessible. This means it can be implemented into any solution 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 software 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 .odt for text documents, .ods for spreadsheets, .odp for presentations and .odg for graphics. The OpenOffice.org database format (.odb) is not part of this specification. An OpenDocument file can be either a simple XML file that uses
For a comparison with Microsoft's XML formats, see Comparison of OpenDocument and Microsoft XML formats.
Microsoft has announced that they intend to enable conversion between its Open XML formats and OpenDocument in Office 2007.
Standardization
The OpenDocument standard was developed by the OASIS industry consortium. The standardization process included the developers of many office suites or related document systems. On May 3, 2006, the OpenDocument specification draft was approved by ISO with broad participation and no negative votes, after a six-month review process. If the full process is completed, OpenDocument may become ISO 26300.
Note that this standard does not contain any specifications for spreadsheet formula's. This means that this particular part of the OpenDocument implementation is left up to the different software implementations and does not guarantee interoperability between ISO OpenDocument spreadsheet documents. It is argued that this is because the standard was rushed trough the standardisation proces following pressure by political forces like the EC and other governing bodies and by Microsoft competitors like Sun and IBM who are pushing StarOffice and OpenOffice.org solutions as alternatives for MS Office. Standardised formula's for the ODF format are not expected before Opendocument specifications revision 1.2 planned in october 2007.
Application support
Software
A number of existing applications and programs (FLOSS and otherwise) support OpenDocument to varying degrees. Although Microsoft Office did not originally support OpenDocument, Microsoft has relented to pressure from various governments and will release software dubbed Open XML Translator that will be freely available under an open-source license. Microsoft plans to release a Beta test version of this software later in 2006 for Microsoft Word and early in 2007 for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Powerpoint Many third parties have also announced development of plugins and filters to support OpenDocument on Microsoft's products.
- Further information: Standard office document formats debate
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?
While the specification of OpenDocument is going through an extensive accessibility review, it is known that 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. They claim 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..
- Further information: OpenDocument software - Accessibility
Licensing
The OpenDocument specification is available for [free download and use]. Key contributor Sun Microsystems [link] 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.
- Further information: OpenDocument vs. Microsoft Office Open XML licensing
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:
- Companies like Sun Microsystems, IBM, Novell promote the OpenDocument Format actively, as well as other companies who may or may not be working inside the OpenDocument Format's Technical Committee of the OASIS.
- The [OpenDocument Fellowship] was founded to support and promote these formats.
- [SpreadOpenDocument.org] was the first one to promote the OpenDocument Format to the public in August 2005.
- On November 4, 2005, IBM and Sun Microsystems convened the "OpenDocument (ODF) Summit" in Armonk, New York, to discuss how to boost OpenDocument adoption. The ODF Summit brought together representatives from several industry groups and technology companies, including Oracle, Google, Adobe, Novell, Red Hat, Computer Associates, Corel, Nokia, Intel, and Linux e-mail company Scalix. (LaMonica, November 10, 2005). The providers committed resources to technically improve OpenDocument through existing standards bodies and to promote its usage in the marketplace, possibly through a stand-alone foundation.
- [OIDI.org] (Open Interoperative Document Initiative) is committed to encouraging efforts by governments at all levels, around the globe, to implement changes necessary to ensure public documents are open and interoperable and thus available to all citizens/residents without the need for specific vendor software.
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, which has licensing requirements that prevent some competitors from using it. However, on 6th July 2006 Microsoft announced that they would support the OpenDocument format and create a plugin to allow Office to save to ODF.
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.
On June 23th 2006, the Belgian federal administration decided 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
- Standard office document formats debate
- OpenDocument software
- OpenDocument software comparison
- WordprocessingML
- List of document markup languages
- Comparison of document markup languages
- Open format
- OpenFormula
- Association for Competitive Technology, Microsoft's lobby group that opposes the Massachusetts initiative.
- Open standard
- Vendor lock-in
- Open Document Architecture — An older standard file format that failed to gain acceptance.
- DocBook
References
External links
- Organizations
- [OASIS Open Document Format Technical Committee] coordinates the OpenDocument development and is the official source for specifications, schemas, etc.
- [OpenDocument Format Alliance] "works globally to educate policymakers, IT administrators and the public on the benefits and opportunities of the OpenDocument Format" - notably the most active members are Microsoft competitors especially IBM and Sun Microsystems
- [OpenDocument Fellowship] is a volunteer organisation that provides information about OpenDocument and advocates its deployment.
- [friendsofopendocument.org] advocates OpenDocument
- [spreadopendocument.org] advocates OpenDocument
- Deployment in Europe
- [Documentation on the Promotion of Open Document Exchange Format]; this page gathers all available information regarding the European programme’s activities for supporting the uptake of open document formats, including the "Valoris report on Open Document Formats".
- Debate
- [Forum Debate] a lively and informative ongoing debate over whether or not a word processor application should adopt the OpenDocument format
- Software
- [OpenOffice.org suite]
- [KOffice suite]
- [OOo Label Templates] for making labels with Openoffice, XML based, licensed under GNU GPL
- [Viewer Visioo] — licensed under GNU GPL, and apparently written in Python. Linux and Windows versions are available.
- See more software at the OpenDocument Software article.
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