The new version of ODF delivers many enhancements called for by the international community including support for digital signatures, semantic web technology, and the OpenFormula spreadsheet language.

"We like that ODF has been developed through an open, inclusive process—one that welcomes government participation and input—and that there are many products which support ODF, so vendor lock-in is not a concern," said Peter Strickx, CTO Fedict, the agency responsible for developing and implementing e-gov strategy in Belgium. "As a vivid promoter of open standards, Fedict welcomes ODF 1.2 and encourages vendors to implement this specification on various platforms, ensuring 'universal' (any device/any OS) information accessibility both in the short term and long term."

"Version 1.2 is an important milestone in the evolution of the OpenDocument OASIS Standard," said Rob Weir, chair of the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee. "ODF 1.2 is the product of a multi-year collaboration among commercial software vendors, governments, open source projects and the de jure standards community. We're pleased to offer implementors and their users a revised ODF specification, with additional capabilities, as well as interoperability, accessibility and security enhancements."

The ODF 1.0 OASIS Standard was previously approved as an International Standard, ISO/IEC 26300:2006. ODF 1.1 is currently undergoing ballot in ISO/IEC JTC 1. The OASIS ODF Technical Committee expects to start the process of submitting ODF 1.2 to JTC 1 soon.

Several open source projects are actively engaged in the OASIS ODF work including Apache OpenOffice.org, Calligra Suite, LibreOffice, AbiWord and Gnumeric.

Participation in the OASIS ODF Technical Committee, ODF Interoperability and Conformance Committee, and the ODF Adoption Committee is open to all interested parties. Archives of the Committees' work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS invites public review and comment.

Support for OpenDocument 1.2

IBM
"IBM welcomes the newly approved OpenDocument Format 1.2 standard. We believe that successful open standards, such as ODF 1.2, are effective drivers of software interoperability and provide the foundation for industry innovation. Open standards such as ODF 1.2 level the playing field, and generate increased competition by providing consumers and businesses with valuable new choices."
-- Angel Diaz, vice president of open standards, IBM

Microsoft Corp.
"As an OASIS Foundational Sponsor, Microsoft is pleased to see the approval of ODF 1.2, which Microsoft participated in and supported. This is an important milestone for the ODF format and the ODF community."
-- Doug Mahugh, Senior Standards Professional, Microsoft

Nokia
"Nokia is pleased to see the approval of ODF 1.2 as an OASIS Standard. We use ODF 1.2 in our MeeGo-based N9 Device mobile office application. The mobile office engine comes from Calligra, an open source project that implements ODF 1.2, a project we have contributed to."
-- Frederick Hirsch, Senior Architect, Nokia

See the full release.