A couple of weeks ago I wrote about what looked like a troubling move away from openness on the part of the European Union. Claims that the leaked European Interoperability Framework wasn't really a draft of version 2 were pretty unconvincing, and I have heard a rumour that the people involved may be starting to backpedal in the face of the outcry. So clearly there's some confusion about what's really happening in Europe in the area of openness.
A major milestone for ODF 1.2 was reached on Friday. Part 3 of ODF 1.2, which specifies document packaging (how a document's XML, images and metadata are combined into a single file and are optionally encrypted or signed), went out for a 60-day public review period. This public review period will run through January 12th, 2010. A public review is a necessary OASIS procedure before a Committee Draft can be approved as a Committee Specification and then as an OASIS Standard.
DK: Chair of Denmark's standards committee: 'Microsoft is lying'
Mogens Kühn Pedersen, chair of the Danish Standards Committee, says Microsoft is lying when it says it will implement ISO OOXML in the next version of its suite of office applications.
On Saturday Pedersen accused the software vendor of lying, in an article by the Danish news site Business.dk, part of the newspaper Berlingske Tidene. Pedersen, professor of Informatics at the Copenhagen Business School, on Monday afternoon confirmed his statement: "I realise these are blunt remarks to make as chair of the committee, but when you advise the government you have to tell the truth."