Around 30 academic institutions, professional
organisations, companies and trade groups have formed the
OpenDocument Format Alliance, to promote open source document
standards in the public sector.
The body, which supports the open source OpenDocument Format
(ODF) standard, is concerned that government files are increasingly
becoming reliant on proprietary software when being stored.
Alliance members fear that government bodies could become locked
into proprietary software contracts when managing their documents,
which could restrict the management of, and access to, data.
The alliance includes the American Library Association, the
Indian Institute of Technology, IBM and Sun Microsystems. These two
IT suppliers both actively support ODF as an alternative to
Microsoft’s document formats contained in its widely used and
proprietary Office suite.
Microsoft plans to make its new OpenXML Document Format the
default format for saving documents in its forthcoming Office 2007
suite.
The move is designed to allay fears that its customers could
become locked into existing proprietary Office file formats when
saving documents. OpenXML has won the support of Intel, Apple,
Toshiba, BP and the British Library, among others.