[dot] KDE joins ODF Alliance

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1148043309/

From: Sebastian Kügler <sebas at kde.org>
Dept: join-the-club
Date: Friday 19/May/2006, @05:55

KDE joins ODF Alliance
======================

   The position of the OpenDocument Format (ODF)
[http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/] was today strengthened by
the K Desktop Environment [http://www.kde.org] (KDE) joining the ODF
Alliance [http://www.odfalliance.org/]. KDE joins other partners such as
Oracle, SUN Microsystems, Mandriva, IBM and Junta de Andalucia in
promoting the OpenDocument Format as a market leader in document
exchange and storage.

     The OpenDocument Format for office applications improves the
transparency and compatibility of critical records by ensuring that
competition is fostered in the market place by promoting the use of a
vendor- and OS-neutral document format to store files.

     "We believe that the use of OpenDocument, backed by important
industry leaders, will prevent content from being lost in propritary
formats and will thus bring more freedom to users.", said Eva
Brucherseifer, president of the KDE e.V.

     By standardizing workflows around ODF, organisations can open
themselves up to more competitive office application offerings, in
particular by taking advantage of cost efficient Linux-based free
software desktop environments.

     "The fact that KOffice provides an independent implementation of
the OpenDocument file format, and was able to take part in its
specification, proves that OpenDocument is actually a standard, not just
a rubber stamp on Sun's OpenOffice file format. What makes an open
standard is not merely approval by a committee, but independent
implementations.",  says David Faure, KOffice developer and member of
the OASIS technical committee for OpenDocument.

     Faure, who has been instrumental in developing the OpenDocument
standard has also been working on the implementation of ODF in KOffice
[http://www.koffice.org], KDE's office suite.  Starting with version 1.5
[http://www.koffice.org/releases/1.5-release.php], KOffice uses ODF as
its native file format.

     ODF is a royalty free, open standard for storing office documents
such as spreadsheets and text processing data on all major desktop
operating including Microsoft Windows, MacOS and Linux. Just as the Web
provided a way for information to be published, viewed and archived
globally, the OpenDocument Format is doing the same for office
documents.