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CDF: Disrupting the Disruption

Today at GOSCON, the OpenDocument Foundation's legal affairs czar, marbux, will present something quite new and refreshing to the tired eyes & numb ears of the document formats conversation.

Within the broad schedule which Deb Bryant skillfully assembled, today at 12:30 pm PST Andy Stein, the CIO of Newport News, Virginia, will host in a general session the Executive Panel on Open Document Formats.

Here are the conference location details.

Panel promo: "GOSCON Executive Panel Will Navigate the Sharp Turns in the Open Document Debate"

Here, CDF will enter formally from stage-left, representing our Hero with a Thousand Faces -- a potential solution to the difficult problem of the Universal Document Format. (Click the image to view in full size.)

Attending will be well-known senior open source & format people from Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, OpenDocument Foundation  & Sun Microsystems. Expect some pretty mind-numbing repetition of platitudes about choice, openness, value & interoperability.

It may be news to some -- not to the ODF Community, certainly -- that we at the OpenDocument Foundation have been displeased with the direction of ODF development this year. We find that ODF is not the open format with the open process we thought it was or originally intended it to be.

Holding aside any tiresome stridency about motivations and possible malicious intentions (everyone wants to be successful and has their own set of objectives and view on how to accomplish them), it is important to recognize that ODF -- the format we have today along with the community structure which sponsors its progress -- does not adequately respect existing standards and does not address the market's requirements for a single Universal Document Format with which any and all applications can work on an equal basis.

Among ODF's weaknesses is its provenance from a specific application and the unwillingness of its originators to release it into the Bazaar. Merchants of irony will note this is the identical problem that paralyzes the incumbent gorilla's format.

I beg you to pay attention to this event and to listen and participate in the trailing conversation over the next several weeks. We may have a solution to a large problem, we may not.

Scoff, complain, criticize, discuss -- but do not doubt that the motivations behind the proposal of WC3 CDF comes from fresh & healthy thought about the market's requirements, which include:

• openness & objective oversight
• full compatibility with legacy MS formats
• convergence of desktops, servers & devices
• cross-platform portability
• vendor independence
• an explicit interoperability framework
• freedom from patent & other encumbrances

Members of the W3C may be sensitive that we are bringing their work to a purpose for which it was not intended. We express with the deepest sincerity our intention to work within the frame provided by the W3C and to fully respect the spirit and the specification of the Compound Document Format to help make documents good for the Web.

UPDATE: Further details and background on our Universal Interoperability efforts are found here.

UPDATE II: better link

OpenDocument Foundation Stirs the Stew

Rob Weir goes postal on the OpenDocument Foundation today on his blog.

It was triggered by our attempts all year to get IBM to think seriously about full & universal interoperability around ODF, culminating in our attaining a prominent place on the marquee ODF panel at GOSCON.

Open Document Panel Features Leading Experts from Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and OpenDocument Foundation

What IS the debate over Open Document Standards, and what is at stake for your organization or enterprise?

This year’s conference will close with one of today’s most pressing issue for governments in the US and abroad.  We are pleased to announce that GOSCON attendees will hear directly from the organizations and their top-flight experts that will define the next Document Standard.

Panelists are expected to address the practical differences between competing standards OOXML, ODF and CDF to determine which one(s) truly provide a single file format that is open, universally interoperable and application and platform independent. About half of this special general session will be set aside for audience questions, providing an opportunity for GOSCON attendees to gain direct access to the debate.

Panelists include:

• Douglas W. Johnson, manager, Standards Strategy, Corporate Standards, Sun Microsystems
• Arnaud Le Hors, program director, Standards & Emerging Markets, IBM Open Source & Standards Project Office
• Buck "Marbux" Martin, director of legal affairs, OpenDocument Foundation
• Jason Matusow, senior director of interoperability, Microsoft Corporation

Brian Proffitt, principal of Linux Today, has weighed in.

So has PJ at Groklaw in News Picks.

Whatever can be so threatening? Watch for transcripts or audio feeds from the GOSCON panel which happens at 12:30 Pacific Standard Time, (next) Tuesday, October 16th.