The ODF format was also at the heart of a recent well-publicized controversy over whether the Commonwealth of Massachusetts should require ODF in future desktop software procurements.
In the wake of his decision, then-CIO Peter Quinn, was criticized but ultimately cleared of unrelated accusations that his office misappropriated funds. Quinn subsequently resigned, but his ODF decision remained in force.
Microsoft has responded to the emergence of ODF with OfficeXML, a published XML-based format available for free that it claims is in effect, open.
Currently, ODF is supported by Sun’s StarOffice and its open source cousin, OpenOffice. Not surprisingly, that’s where work on the ODF format started. It was subsequently submitted to Oasis, which ratified it as a standard in May 2005.
Naturally, The Open Document Format Alliance, a 150-member group formed in support of the format less than two months ago, hailed the ISO ratification as a real shot in the arm. Marino Marcich, executive director of the group, called it the first step in the process of getting public bodies to mandate ODF.
Over the past 10 to 15 years, Microsoft Office has been the de facto standard for office documents, including text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. ODF backers say having a de facto standard isn’t good enough, because it requires purchase of proprietary software to read the documents. They content that publicly available documents should be available in a vendor-neutral format.
Approval of the OpenDocument Format by ISO marks an important milestone in the effort to help governments solve the very real problem of finding a better way to preserve, access and control their documents now and in the future, said Marcich, who noted that his organization will now step up lobbying of government agencies to adopt ODF as the desktop standard.
Admittedly, in the developed world, locking up the government market is at most a pyrrhic victory because it is only a narrow segment. The ISO decision is not likely to prompt commercial users in droves to drop Microsoft Office.
Besides, through the establishment of a de facto monopoly, Microsoft actually made life easier for corporate users. Anyone who suffered through desktop computing’s first decade can well recall when different companies used different word processing systems or spreadsheet software. At that time, data was only portable in hard copy.
However, in the developing world, where resources are scarce, and so is computing, it’s potentially a different story.
Not surprisingly, Red Hat, a cofounder of the ODF Alliance, views the ISO decision as a potential watershed moment. History will prove that if government adopts a particular way of doing business, that in itself sends a strong signal to the private sector, said Tom Rabon, vice president of corporate affairs at Red Hat.
Currently, Red Hat is lending technical support to MIT Media Laboratory founder and Chairman Emeritus Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child (OLPC) $100 computer initiative.
Announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005, OLPC’s goal is getting cheap laptops to school age children to jumpstart their educations, and get them online. The open source connection is obvious: if it’s open source, you don’t have to pay a license fee, which would otherwise strain the economics.
Aside from the fact that the spread of open source office packages and Linux has got to be good for Red Hat, the company has not yet figured out the business model once OLPC emerges from pilot stage.
Nonetheless, Rabon says that the ISO move is yet another step towards spreading Linux desktops for, literally, the rest of us. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we will immediately increase our business, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
