Andy Updegrove picks up on a possible statement of support for ODF from Barack Obama.

Updegrove writes,

“Out of the campaign cacophony of the last week emerged a handful of words from Senator and Democratic party hopeful Barack Obama that could not fail to catch my attention. He used them during the presidential debate held in Las Vegas, and they also appear in the “Innovation Agenda” that Obama had released a few days before. He announced this agenda in a speech he delivered on November 14 at an aptly selected venue: the Google campus in Mountain View, California. One of the pledges he made in the course of that speech reads in part as follows:

To seize this moment, we have to use technology to open up our democracy. It’s no coincidence that one of the most secretive Administrations in history has favored special interests and pursued policies that could not stand up to sunlight. As President, I’ll change that. I’ll put government data online in universally accessible formats. [emphasis added]

“A presidential candidate that is including “universally accessible formats” in his platform? How did that come about?”

No doubt, there are plenty of possible interpretations here, but the statement could be positive for ODF users. If the US Federal government started to adopt ODF, it would catalyze the states and other municipal governments that have tried to act but been halted by wealthy lobbyists.

With other governments around the world rapidly moving to ODF, it’s also becoming a competitive necessity to follow suit. The last one to adopt a new standard will have some catching up to do, and hopefully the US government will recognize that and make its move before too much longer.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 10:45 am and is filed under Free Culture, ODF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.