Zaheda Bhorat, Open Source Programs Manager of Google, writes: The subject of open document standards grows in importance not only for the technically- minded, but for anyone who uses a computer to work on editable documents. Across the board, standards are crucial. They ensure that the devices and technology you use today will continue to work tomorrow, that your DVDs will play in your player, that your calls will go through to any network, and that your documents will be accessible from whichever system you choose today and in the future.

OASIS members are in the process of reviewing and commenting on a draft charter to establish the OASIS Unstructured Operation Markup Language eXtended (UOML-X)) Technical Committee. The group plans to carry on the existing OASIS UOML TC's goal of developing and maintaining the XML-based operation interface standard for unstructured documents under the Royalty Free on RAND Mode of the OASIS IPR Policy. ODF developers and users may find UOML useful; however, UOML addresses a different set of functions.

The teams developing ODF (OpenDocument Format) and OOXML (Office Open XML) standards should work together, evolving the two in parallel, the editor of the ODF standard said Tuesday in an open letter to the standards-setting community. The Microsoft-sponsored OOXML document format is just days away from a critical meeting that will influence whether the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) will adopt it as a standard as its rival ODF was adopted in May 2006. Relations between supporters of the two formats are, for the most part, combative rather than cordial.

"The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is the global day for document liberation. It will be a day of grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of Free Document Formats and Open Standards in general.

Complementary to the Software Freedom Day we seek to have local teams from all over the world organise events on the last Wednesday in March. 2008 is the first year that the Document Freedom Day is being called for, and we are looking for people around the world who are willing to join the effort.

DFD's main goals are: