Open Source Blog

First came the OpenDocument Format Alliance, set up to promote the use of the ODF by local and national government organizations. Then came the OASIS ODF Adoption Committee, set up to do much the same amongst business users and software vendors.

Both group can count some key vendors on their member rosters - Sun, IBM, Oracle and Novell are members of both - as well as associated industry groups: while the ODF Alliance boasts the American Library Association, the Software & Information Industry Association, and the Open Society Archives of the Central European University, the ODF Adoption Committee includes the National Informatics Center of the Government of India and the Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration.

Meanwhile, both groups also include the OpenDocument Foundation in their member list. The OpenDocument Foundation is a "user facing" organization set up "to engage the public at large in the use of OpenDocument". Then there is the OpenDocument Fellowship, an ODF Alliance member and a volunteer organisation set up to promote the use and development of the OpenDocument format.

If none of those take your fancy you could always try SpreadOpenDocument.org or Friends of OpenDocument.

While some might doubt the need for all these industry and user-led groups, their existence does prove one thing at least: that the ODF story is about much more than specific vendors (or open source in general) going up against Microsoft.

"The life of a document may far exceed that of a particular software product or vendor. Users have a right to retain control over their work - no matter when their documents were created or what tool was used to create them," noted Don Harbison, IBM employee and proposed ODF Adoption Committee chair.

How many promotion organizations does an open standard need? As many as it takes to get people focusing on open standards.