The recently formed OpenDocument Format Alliance is expressing its confidence that the file format will be approved by the International Organisation for Standardisation next month. The alliance, which was launched last month to promote the use of the OpenDocument standard in governments, said this week that it has been lobbying various organisations to ensure that the standard achieves ISO certification. (more…)
The ODF Alliance, an organization of companies supporting the adoption of the OASIS OpenDocument format, announced Tuesday that its membership had more than tripled in less than two months. Since March 3, its ranks have grown from 38 to 138.
Some of the biggest names in technology are now members of the ODF Alliance, including Corel, EDS, IBM, Novell, Opera, Oracle, and Sun. Open source companies have also opened up to the alliance, with GNOME, Mandriva, OpenOffice.org, OSDL and Red Hat offering their support.
A group of 200 senior corporate executives and university leaders publishes a 72-page report that examines open standards, open source software and open innovation. The paper concludes that openness should be promoted as a matter of public policy, in order to pursue innovation and economic growth in the global economies.
The group is called Committee for Economic Development (CED) and is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy research organization comprised of business and university leaders. (more…)
Sun Microsystems to continue open-sourcing Java - the company announced it is going to open a decent portion of Java Studio Enterprise code. “This new project will be released as the NetBeans Enterprise Pack and will be based on Java Studio Enterprise … along with three tools, two of which are new: Sun’s UML modeler plus a new visual XML and visual designer … will be a part of the opened code,” BetaNews says.
Future standards to convert documents to PDF are coming soon…
See also information how to convert special formats of documents: convert convert Autocad to PDF, PDF converter , PDF to JPEG, convert Word to PDF, convert DWG to PDF, convert Excel to PDF
The IEEE 802.22 Group is working on a new standard intended to increase the efficiency of spectrum use by enabling the deployment of wireless regional area networks in the “white space” between the coverage areas of over-the-air broadcast VHF/UHF TV stations. The standard would work on a non-interfering basis and will facilitate the provision of fixed wireless broadband access services within 40 km or more of a transmitter. (more…)
Norwegian government wants to set standards for access to public information by starting to use more open-source software in its agencies. “It should no longer be necessary to use software from the major, international computer companies to gain access to electronic information in the public sector,” the Norwegian government said in a statement,” the government said in a statement.
European Union’s commission member Neelie Kroes threatens Microsoft not to be able to sell a single copy of it’s new Windows Vista within the whole EU. The problem is supposed to be the “integrated programs” that would harm the competitiveness of the European IT market.
“We expect Microsoft to develop Vista to comply with European laws protecting the competitive market economy. It wouldn’t be smart to come with something that does not correspond our law(s),” said Kroes. The commissioner also stated she has sent a letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer regarding this latest issue. Microsoft stated it does not know about the letter and can not provide any information thought. (more…)
After Massachusetts and EU thoughts on including “open formats” in their laws, yet another example might be coming: the US State of Minnesota introduces “Open Data Formats” Bill, in short a requirement for all Executive branch agencies in the state to “use open standards in situations where the other requirements of a project do not make it technically impossible to do that.”
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Another two organisations chose to migrate to the possible document format of the future.
The City of Bristol Converting to StarOffice
The City of Bristol, UK, a member of the Open Source Academy, is to migrate its about 5,500 desktops from Microsoft Office to Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice 8.0, which features ODF support. After a public TCO analysis (which is meant to help others deciding), the City counts on a 60% savings over a five year period. They use Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect and Microsoft Office, some of with with multiple versions that make the document exchange rather tough now.
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