» Tempers Cooling. Now Back To Work. There was a time where a lot of us were getting pretty hot under the collar. After all, a large proprietary software company was using every possible tactic to try to push is 'open standard file formats'  through the ISO in order to avoid having to use the truly open standard formats that had already been approved. Those of us who advocate for openness were understandably peeved. Since the ISO did indeed give them what they wanted, and since that proprietary software company has since pledged to implement ODF in their office applications software suite, let's get to work making the more open of the pair (ODF = open; OOXML = less open) the best and most implemented (with better implementations). Let us also work on increasing the penetration of ODF-compliant products. One way you can do this is to use ODF formats for your correspondence, with a link to the OpenOffice.org site and the Sun ODF Plugin for MS Office site. When your correspondents install the software, they also can be more or less ODF-compliant. Let's not forget, however, that we have some important political work to accomplish, too. One proprietary software company and its allies were able to stave off open standard file formats proposals in several states in 2007. Please join GeekPAC in campaigning for openness in government.

Tags: ODF, open standards, file formats

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