OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, said it has submitted the standard to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). OpenDocument is a set of document formats for storing desktop applications, including word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software.
The first version of the standard was ratified earlier this year by OASIS and is used by the OpenOffice open-source product suite.
Late last month, OASIS said it had submitted the OpenDocument specification to the Electrotechnical Commission's Joint Technical Committee at ISO (ISO/IEC JTC1) for approval as a standard. OpenDocument will continue to be developed and maintained within OASIS, but the group is seeking the ISO standardization to make the document formats more accessible, according to an OASIS representative.
"We believe OpenDocument's approval by ISO/IEC JTC1…will serve as a gratifying endorsement, making OpenDocument even more accessible to adopters--particularly those implementing business solutions for governments--who look to ISO for assurance of long-term viability," said OASIS representative Carol Geyer.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts last month announced that it had chosen OpenDocument as the standard document format for state agencies in the executive branch. Other state and national governments are considering moving to OpenDocument-based products, according to an IBM representative.
Sun Microsystems' StarOffice suite, which is based on OpenOffice, supports OpenDocument. Microsoft's dominant Office System product line, meanwhile, does not support OpenDocument natively.
