Process

The first official OASIS

OASIS (organization)

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards is a global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business and web service standards...

 meeting to discuss the standard was December 16, 2002; OASIS approved OpenDocument as an OASIS standard on May 1, 2005.

The group decided to build on an earlier version of the OpenOffice.org XML

OpenOffice.org XML

OpenOffice.org XML is an open XML-based file format developed as an open community effort by Sun Microsystems and other OpenOffice.org project contributors in 2000-2002. The open-source software application suite OpenOffice.org 1.x and StarOffice 6 used the format as their native and default file...

 format, since this was already an XML format with most of the desired properties, and had been in use since 2000 as the program's primary storage format. Note, however, that OpenDocument is not the same as the older OpenOffice.org format.

According to Gary Edwards, a member of the OpenDocument TC, the specification was developed in two phases. Phase one (which lasted from November 2002 through March 2004), had the goal of ensuring that the OpenDocument format could capture all the data from a vast array of older legacy systems. Phase Two focused on Open Internet based collaboration.

Participants

The standardization process included the vendors of office suites or related document systems, including (in alphabetical order):

• Adobe
  Adobe Systems
  Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
  
   (Framemaker
  FrameMaker
  Adobe FrameMaker is a document processor for the production and manipulation of large structured documents. It is produced by Adobe Systems. Although FrameMaker has evolved slowly in recent years, it maintains a strong following among professional technical writers.- Overview :FrameMaker has more...
  
  , Distiller)
• Arbortext (Arbortext Enterprise Publishing System)
• Ars Aperta
• Corel
  Corel
  Corel Corporation from the abbreviation is a computer software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, that specializes in graphics processing, similar to Adobe Systems...
  
   (WordPerfect
  WordPerfect
  WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
  
  )
• IBM
  IBM
  International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
  
   (Lotus 1-2-3
  Lotus 1-2-3
  Lotus 1-2-3 is a spreadsheet program from Lotus Software . It was the IBM PC's first "killer application"; its huge popularity in the mid-1980s contributed significantly to the success of the IBM PC in the corporate environment.-Beginnings:...
  
  , Workplace)
• KDE
  KDE
  KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
  
   (KOffice
  KOffice
  Calligra Suite is a graphic art and office suite by KDE created from KOffice in 2010. It is available for desktop PCs, tablet computers, and smartphones...
  
  )
• SpeedLegal
  Exari
  Exari is an enterprise software company, founded in 1999, which has pioneered interactive document assembly using a patented XML design that ensures the validity of both the template and the assembled output documents, for arbitrary XML document types...
  
   (SmartPrecedent enterprise document assembly system); both product and company later changed names to Exari
  Exari
  Exari is an enterprise software company, founded in 1999, which has pioneered interactive document assembly using a patented XML design that ensures the validity of both the template and the assembled output documents, for arbitrary XML document types...
  
  .
• Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems
  Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
  
   / OpenOffice.org
  OpenOffice.org
  OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
  
   (StarOffice
  StarOffice
  StarOffice, known briefly as Oracle Open Office before its discontinuation in 2010, is a proprietary office suite. It was originally developed by StarDivision which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999...
  
  /OpenOffice.org
  OpenOffice.org
  OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
  
  )

Document-using organizations who initiated or were involved in the standardization process included (alphabetically):

• Boeing
  Boeing
  The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
  
  
• CSW Informatics
• Drake Certivo
• Intel (they are developing sample documents as a test suite) (Bastian, 2005)
• National Archives of Australia
  National Archives of Australia
  The National Archives of Australia is a body established by the Government of Australia for the purpose of preserving Commonwealth Government records. It is an Executive Agency of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and reports to the Cabinet Secretary, Senator Joe Ludwig.The national...
  
  
• New York State Office of the Attorney General
• Novell
  Novell
  Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
  
   (Berlind, October 25, 2005)
• Society of Biblical Literature
  Society of Biblical Literature
  The Society of Biblical Literature, founded 1880, is a constituent society of the American Council of Learned Societies , with the stated mission to "Foster Biblical Scholarship"...
  
  
• Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
  
• Stellent

As well as having formal members, draft versions of the specification were released to the public and subject to worldwide review. External comments were then adjudicated publicly by the committee.

Current status and next steps

OASIS is one of the organizations which has been granted the right to propose standards directly to an ISO SC for "Fast-Track Processing". This process is specifically designed to allow an existing standard from any source be submitted without modification directly for vote as a 'Draft International Standard (DIS) (or Draft Amendment (DAM)). Accordingly, OASIS submitted the OpenDocument standard to JTC 1/SC 34

ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 titled as Document description and processing languages is a subcommittee of the ISO/IEC JTC1 joint technical committee, which is a collaborative effort of both the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission.-Scope and Terms...

 Document description and processing languages a joint technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC

IEC

-Organisations:* Independent Electoral Commission * Independent Electrical Contractors, a U.S. national trade association.* Institut d'Estudis Catalans , a Catalan academic institution....

) for approval as an international ISO/IEC standard. It was accepted as ISO/IEC DIS 26300, Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 draft International Standard (DIS), and it was published November 30, 2006 as ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Information technology -- Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0.

Gary Edwards, a member of the OpenDocument TC, says that after ISO standardization, "there is no doubt in my mind that OpenDocument is heading to the W3C for ratification as the successor to HTML and XHTML." . The W3C has not made any public statements supporting or denying this statement, however.

Since Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 was accepted as an ISO/IEC standard, OASIS have updated their standard to v1.1 in 2007. This was some years later submitted to ISO/IEC and as of March 2011 it is in "enquiry stage" as Draft Amendment 1 (ISO/IEC 26300:2006/DAM 1). OpenDocument v1.2 is (as of 2011-04) an OASIS Committee Specification. It is unknown if this will be submitted to ISO/IEC.

External links

• OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee coordinates the OpenDocument development and is the official source for specifications, schemas, etc.
• OASIS OpenDocument Specifications