OASIS Approves OpenOffice 2.0 File Format

OASIS, the international e-business standards consortium, announced on Monday that it has approved the Open Document Format for Office Applications Version 1.0 as a standard.

OpenDocument (Open Document Format for Office Applications) is the new default XML-based file format for the forthcoming open-source office suite OpenOffice.org 2.0.

Although based on the OpenOffice.org 1.x format, which was submitted to OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) in 2002 by Sun Microsystems Inc., OpenDocument is not compatible with the OpenOffice 1.x formats.

Version 2.0 is not just meant to be another office-suite file format: It’s meant to be an open format that can be used by any office suite. In particular, it’s designed to not tie businesses’ data to a particular program or version of a program.

“Office productivity applications and the documents they create are key to today’s knowledge economy. Information critical to the long-term functioning of any organization is stored in the spreadsheets, presentations and text documents its employees create,” said Michael Brauer, a technical lead at Sun and chair of the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee.

For once, IBM and Sun see eye to eye.

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