[Ecommerce] NYT: Push to create open standards for file format

[Manon Ress]

Push to Create Standards for Documents
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/technology/03open.html?
_r=3D1&oref=3Dslogin
By STEVE LOHR
Published: March 3, 2006

With government records, reports and documents increasingly being
created and stored in digital form, there is a software threat to
electronic access to government information and archives. The problem
is that public information can be locked in proprietary software
whose document formats become obsolete or cannot be read by people
using software from another company.

To cope with the problem, 30 companies, trade groups, academic
institutions and professional organizations are announcing today the
formation of the OpenDocument Format Alliance, which will promote the
adoption of open technology standards by governments.

"The goal is to ensure that the largest number of people possible are
able to find, retrieve and meaningfully use government information,"
said Patrice McDermott, deputy director of government relations for
the American Library Association, a member of the alliance.

The problem, she said, is bad and getting worse. She noted that the
National Archives and Records Administration was engaged in a costly
project so the electronic documents it saves from federal agencies
can be opened and read.

The alliance supports a particular solution, called the OpenDocument
Format, for standard office word processing, presentation and
spreadsheet documents. Today, the formats used by most people for
creating documents are those in Microsoft Office =97 over 90 percent of
the market.

The alliance includes professional groups like the library
association and universities like the Indian Institute of Technology.
Its membership also includes many rivals to Microsoft in the software
business, including I.B.M. and Sun Microsystems, which offer office
software that uses the OpenDocument Format.

"This is not a partisan, anti-Microsoft group," said Simon Phipps of
Sun Microsystems.

But Microsoft supports another open standard for documents, called
OpenXML Document Format. In Office 2007, which Microsoft will ship in
the second half of the year, OpenXML will be the default format for
saving documents instead of Microsoft's proprietary formats, said
Alan Yates of the company's Office division.

The OpenXML format is supported by Intel, Apple, Toshiba, BP and the
British Library, among others, Mr. Yates said. Microsoft submitted
OpenXML to Ecma International, a standards body in Geneva, last year.
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Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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