OpenDocument Foundation drops support for ODF, backs obscure W3C format
By Ryan Paul
October 31, 2007 - 10:40PM CT

The OpenDocument Foundation has decided to end its support for OASIS's OpenDocument Format (ODF) and instead support W3C's Compound Document Format (CDF), which is currently described in the Web Integration Compound Document Core 1.0 draft.

This move reflects growing concerns within the interoperability advocacy community about the long-term viability of both ODF and Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML). The OpenDocument Foundation is a little-known industry group that was originally founded to promote adoption of the ODF format.

Its core members include OASIS ODF technical committee member Gary Edwards, OpenOffice.org marketing lead Sam Hiser, and Paul Martin-a Groklaw writer and legal expert better known as Marbux. The OpenDocument Foundation's most significant contribution to ODF advocacy efforts is an ODF plugin for Microsoft Office that includes support for legacy versions all the way back to Office 97.

The group no longer feels that ODF is sufficiently open or flexible enough to best serve the needs of office software users. Instead, it's advocating the W3C's Compound Data Format.

Ars Technica
complete article