[Noooxml] [odf-discuss] URGENT: Support threatened open standards in Europe before Sept 15, 2007

[Pieter Hintjens]

On 9/19/07, Lars Noodén <lars at umich.edu> wrote:
> arebenti at web.de wrote:
> ...
> > When I wrote it I became aware that there is virtually no "open standards"
> > pressure group. And when I did Bundestag Open document formats recently I was
> > surprised to find out that this is still true. Shocking.
>
> Shall we found one now?  If so, what approach should it used to ensure
> there is a reasonable pays off in comparison to effort?

It's very nice to see that people are thinking what I've been thinking.

I've actually been working on a plan for this for some months, since
it's clear we need a global effort to promote open standards.  Current
working name is digitalstandards.org (since 'open' itself is becoming
abused and will become more so as time goes on, and anyhow all
standards should by definition be open, it's a tautology).

Anyone who would like to help me work on the strategy and planning for
this organisation, drop me a line.  I'll put together a workgroup and
circulate the planning documents I have.

The idea is to create a new organisation that focuses purely on this
matter, and which brings together the wide experience of all groups
working in this domain, and does activism across the world, mainly to
convince governments to adopt and promote true open standards.

This is not an FFII plan, but it's compatible with the FFII's mission.
 We'd probably help start it and fund it but we'd look for broad
support, something we already did for patents with EUPACO.

Next week when I'm back from the EPIP conference I'll set-up the
digitalstandards.org web site and we can work from there.

-
Pieter Hintjens
FFII