[OpenDoc Announce] OASIS ODF TC approves ODF 1.2 as Commitee Specification

[Mailing list for announcements for all OpenDoc Society members]

Dear members,


The OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) TC
has officially and unanimously approved ODF 1.2 as a Committee
Specification. The new version of the standard has taken four years to
complete and has been adopted by many applications already. Next stage
is the official vote within OASIS to adopt this specification as an
OASIS standard. OASIS is the designated maintenance body for ISO/IEC
JTC1 SC34 IS26300.

ODF describes an XML-based application-independent and
platform-independent digital document file format, as well as the
characteristics of software applications which read, write and process
such documents. The ODF standard is applicable to document authoring,
editing, viewing, exchange and archiving, including text documents,
spreadsheets, presentation graphics, drawings, charts and similar
documents commonly used by personal productivity software applications.
A significant number of governments worldwide have chosen ODF as the
standard for exchanging documents within government and with external
contacts such citizens and companies.

OpenDoc Society congratulates the members of the ODF TC on their work.
"This is an important step for the entire ecosystem," states Michiel
Leenaars, board member of OpenDoc Society, "There is significant demand
for this new version of the standard, as it enables new exiting and
unique features such as RDF metadata, advanced digital signatures and
enhances key areas of ODF such as formula's. That means the next stage
of interoperability for office applications is finally there". With
already very strong vendor support for the new version of the standard
and the formal adoption as an OASIS standard likely to occur in a matter
of several weeks (i.e. a 30 day ballot period), OpenDoc Society
encourages customers to evaluate and start planning the adoption of ODF 1.2.

                                                         (see also:
         http://www.opendocsociety.org/news/odf-tc-approves-odf-1.2

*** More info: ***

The multi-part specification "Open Document Format for Office
Applications (OpenDocument) Version 1.2" (Committee Specification Draft
07 / Public Review Draft 03) can be found here:

http://docs.oasis-open.org/office/v1.2/csprd03/