The OpenDocument-Format (ODF) yesterday became an ISO standard (ISO 26300). The format was originally developed by OpenOffice.org and is now for instance used by the following word processors StarOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, Scribus, TextMaker, Writely and AjaxWrite.

I have never been a fan of OpenOffice. The truth is that I hate it. Never the less, having a standard format for bigger documents is important, so their work is highly appreciated. Knowing that AbiWord and TextMaker both have it make it easy for me to stay away from OO. But that is what freedom is all about, being able to work the applications that you want and not having to accept one to be able to communicate with collegues or friends!

Hopefully Pages in MacOS X will get support for this format in it’s next version, and more important that the BeOS platform get one word processor or translator that can read and write this new standard document format. Time will show.