Google joins Open Document Alliance, and Writely so!

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 13 July 2006 12:35

Business IT - Technology

Google, whose recently acquired online word processor, Writely, will support the Open Document Format (ODF) has joined the Open Document Alliance.
The move follows Microsoft's announcement of support for ODF  with the release of a range of plug-in translators for use with Office applications and is the latest development reflecting the growing momentum of ODF.

In the past month the Governments of Denmark and Belgium have all mandated the use of open documents, but have stopped short of standardising on ODF. Massachusetts is also well advanced with similar plans, but facing some internal dissenters.

The Open Document Alliance http://www.odfalliance.org was launched on 3 March 2006 with more than 35 initial members from a wide range of countries around the world to promote and advance the use of Open Document Format (ODF). It has since grown to 240 members, and its document format has been accepted by the ISO as an international standard.

Microsoft is also pursuing international standard status for its new document format, Office Open XML, that will make its debut in Offie 2007. And Microsoft promised that it would licence Open XML free to other software companies. It intends to submit Open XML to European standards body, ECMA International, for approval as an open standard. If Open XML is approved by ECMA, Microsoft will seek to have it approved by the ISO.

Also this week, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), a provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance free and open source software, released an opinion assuring developers that they can legally implement ODF in free and open source software.

It noted that, in the current climate of uncertainty surrounding patents, free and open software developers have been reluctant to implement programs if compatibility with GPL is in question.

James Vasile, SFLC legal counsel, said: "ODF is GPL-compatible. Open Document Format is a truly open standard that can be implemented by free and proprietary software alike.

The SFLC opinion is available online here.