A lot can happen in a day
May 3rd, 2006
This time last night I was busy trying to finalise the press release and the accompanying web site for the Get Legal – Get OpenOffice.org campaign. Thanks to amazing co-operation from Louis (in Canada) and Cristian (in Romania), it got finished (just read that again – isn’t the net amazing?).
No sooner was that hitting the wires than the news came through today
The six month voting window for ISO/IEC adoption of the OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard closed on May 1, and at midnight (Geneva time) last night it was announced internally that ODF had been approved by the ISO members eligible and interested in casting a vote. The vote passed with broad participation and no negative votes (there were a few abstentions). As a result, ODF is now ISO/IEC 26300.
While there are still some procedural steps internal to ISO/IEC that are required before the official text of the standard will be finalized and issued, these steps are formalities rather than gating factors.
For those who follow these matters, this is a pretty amazing triumph for open standards folks, given that Microsoft had thrown its weight behind its own rather-less-than-open alternative.
Another press release is taking shape on the lists, but this time the message is a lot harder to sell. We have to find a way to pass the ‘so-what?’ test.
Q: Is your office suite complying with ISO 26300 Standards ?
A: No. So what? I send Word documents to everyone and I’ve never had any problems.
This one needs some hard thinking. For those people who understand its importance, today was important. But for Joe Public, it isn’t anywhere on the radar.
But worries about illegal software might just be. Especially if his copy of MS-Office suddenly starts warning him that he’s a pirate. Or he’s just seen he can get a £20,000 reward for informing on the company which has just laid him off.