Industry standards may not be open (e.g., Microsoft Word file formats) so there are reverse-engineering risks with any OSS dependent upon those standards. The MoJ preference for open standards (e.g., Open Document Format, which is now supported even by Microsoft) lessens this risk.

n a policy document specifically timed for release this afternoon, Microsoft's general managers for interoperability, Tom Robertson and Jean Paoli, make a play for ownership of the standards issue facing users of competing document formats, by saying the company would support ratification of its own Open XML format along with OpenDocument Format (ODF) as ISO standards, if and only if doing so woul

The Malaysian government today announced plans to adopt open standards and the Open Document Format (ODF) within the country's public sector.

Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global grassroots effort to promote and build awareness of the importance of free document formats in particular and open standards in general. If you have ever received a document from a friend that your software could not open, then you know the frustration of proprietary formats.

The problem with the battle between HD-DVD and BLU-RAY was they were identical standards for high-definition video players. The arguments over high-definition digital video standards has a salutary lesson for the world of document formats. Once the dominant owner of all document formats, the ubiquitous .DOC, .XLS and .PPT file types, Microsoft is attempting to force all computer users to standardize on their latest efforts. This new format goes by the unwieldy name of Office Open XML (OOXML).

Despite my personal preference for Free and Open Source Software and open-standard documents, almost every document I create eventually ends up in some proprietary format. But proprietary formats, while convenient in their ubiquity, are inherently problematic, and there are some very compelling reasons to think twice about how you save your files.

the Dutch government has recently attracted Microsoft's anger by launching an actionplan to adopt open standards, and concretely OpenDocument Format by April 2008 in the national government. Open Standards will become mandatory and Free Software will be preferred. As the Minister of State, Frank Heemskerk, argued, this plan is not to exclude any company, but to stimulate information exchange, vendor independence and choice for various software products that implement open standards. he Ministry of Economical Affairs has published an English version of the plan on its site today.

Today is Document Freedom Day 2010. For the third time, groups all over the world are celebrating open document formats and Open Standards. They are raising awareness for how a technical issue impacts our day-to-day lives.

During the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, I met with Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards. We discussed document standards and the implications of ISO's controversial decision to grant fast-track approval to Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format.