DocumentFreedomDay[EN] This day shall increase the awareness about the importance of open document standards. Open document standards are digital equivalents to the pens of the paper world: Every pen should work on every paper. However, this is not the case for document formats. Not every document application work on every document data format, if the data format is not openly defined and standardized.

Today the world is dominated by proprietary formats. However, there is an alternative, the open document format:

ODF (OpenDocument Format) is an ISO standard created with the aim to provide an open XML-based document file format for office applications to be used for documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical elements. ODF is defined via an open and transparent process at OASIS and has been approved unanimously by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as an international standard in May 2006. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel ODF reuses established standards like HTML, SVG, XSL, SMIL, XLink, XForms, MathML, and Dublin Core. (src)

The demand for openess and standardization is also heard by monopolists like Microsoft. Although ODF standard already exists, Microsoft created its own »open« standard OOXML and tries to become standardized by using a lot of dirty tricks. Thus, Microsoft’s OOXML should be disapproved — read 20 good reasons.

Free your office from proprietary formats, use free software on open document formats!

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