When the OpenDocument Format (ODF) was promoted to ISO 2660, I gave two cheers – the final cheer was reserved for when Microsoft adopted the standard as the default file format for MS-Office. I also called for independent conformance testing for ODF, something the ODF community has not yet achieved.

So, Microsoft’s announcement today that it was launching a community-based initiative which would work on conformance testing for ODF and OOXML also deserves a cheer – but only one, as it did not include the biggest players in the ODF world, the OpenOffice.org Community (OpenOffice.org), Sun Microsystems (Star Office), IBM (Lotus Symphony), and RedFlag CH2000 (RedOffice).

As a member of the OpenOffice.org Community Council, I was disappointed that we were not invited to take part. I will be requesting the Council to ask Microsoft formally for an invitation, and to urge Sun, IBM, and RedFlag to join in too. Microsoft have been claiming recently that they are committed to greater ‘openness’ – let’s see if they are prepared to work with us and turn this into a genuine community activity.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under OpenDocument, OpenOffice.org. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.