Huffington Post Covers ODF
Huffington Post, a political blog, covers the importance of ODF to an increasing number of governments around the world.
Several have already mandated ODF for their own use, based on the theory that open standards will promote competition among office suites (and other document creation tools), which will improve quality and drive down prices–a reversal of the stagnation that’s been the norm for the past decade.
In addition, and more importantly, governments want to ensure the data they produce will remain accessible, and not be threatened by the decisions or strategic moves of a single entity. Data only a few years old, stored in Microsoft’s Office formats, is quickly becoming inaccessible due to format changes that are not documented to the world. The only way to escape this is to use a fully documented, open format, that can be (and is) implemented by multiple software programs. Microsoft’s formats do not meet this requirement; only ODF does.
Governments already mandating ODF include Belgium, Denmark, and Massachusetts.
Others look like they might be moving in the same direction. My guesses for the next to make this smart decision are more US states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as Brazil, France and India.