Euro-Office: sovereign in name only, or in reality too? - TDF Community Blog

The announcement of the Euro-Office is welcome news. The coalition is credible, the governance is sound and the timing is perfect. Europe needs office software, and The Document Foundation is delighted to see such significant players allocating resources to make it happen. However, we have a question. It is not meant to be hostile, but it is the only question that matters. What is the native document format of Euro-Office? The press release promises full compatibility with Microsoft formats. We are well aware of the logic behind migration: organisations moving away from Microsoft need to be certain that their documents will survive the transition. But “full compatibility with Microsoft formats” is certainly not a definition of sovereignty, but rather the definition of a different kind of dependency. OOXML is a format designed, controlled and managed solely by Microsoft. Building a European office suite prioritising compatibility with OOXML means ensuring that the European document infrastructure remains subordinate to architectural decisions made in Redmond. The hosting moves to Europe, but the lock-in remains in Redmond. The alternative exists, is mature and is a law in several European jurisdictions. ODF, the Open Document Format, is an ISO standard developed through an open and