Keeping track of ODF and Open XML

The last time I posted on this topic I claimed the controversy over the two applications was no longer interesting. Unless you have to deal with standards organizations’ politics this is still true. However this does not mean that there are not good reasons to keep up with developments of new tools and new (governmental) decisions on adoption of one of the two applications. (Note the use of ‘applications’ is deliberate and correct both from a standards perspective since both ODF and Open XML are ‘XML applications’, and from a product point of view since a decision to use one or the other is, from a practical point of view, a product decision). All our coverage with links to most other historical coverage is here.

For recent updates see:

• An interview with Microsoft’s Tom Robertson, by Mary Jo Foley
• Comments from Microsoft’s Brian Jones, and a podcast of a conversation between Brian and Jon Udell
• Comments from Novell’s Jeff Jaffe’s blog, and
• The latest features of ODF from OASIS.