Helping to achieve real-world interoperability OpenDoc Society Helping to achieve real-world interoperability

OpenDoc Society Launched on October 24th 2007 by minister of Foreign Trade Frank Heemskerk (EZ) and Patrick Durusau (editor ODF, chair V1-committee) Supported by over sixty companies, government bodies, associations, cultural and scientific institutions, foundations, open source projects We have members all over the world

How we are organised Model proven by the Internet world (cf. Internet Society), applied on best practices for office productivity and open formats like ODF and PDF Member based associated Headed by a nine person non-remunerated board Different subgroups Working groups for accessibility, educational materials, municipalities, metadata (and ideas for many more such as mass deployment, tools, templates and scripting, archiving, etc. Special Interest Groups

Why are we there To bring together knowledge, experience, best practices and people throughout the entire ecosystem around office applications (including open document formats like ODF and PDF) : users Vendors of tools and libraries governments education ICT-vendors Individuals that want to dive into the technology or the usage

Share knowledge Many countries need a network of experts that understand the unique capabilities of open documents Everyone has a limited perspective so that we can learn about other disciplines and domains: science, law, legislation, technical and commercial OpenDoc Society is about collaboration, learning from each other and building a netwerk of experts.

Users have a choice Open standards (ODF, PDF) as the default for exchanging documents will allow a large variety of needs, situations and usage: commercial Office suites open source and online editors embedded hardware (e.g. phones) server- / batch tools Let the best product win!

Approach Breed knowledge on open formats in society at large by means of: Bringing people together Developers (e.g. Plugfests) End users (working groups) Online information a directory of tools and technology providers that can help you Test suites Online services Officeshots.org Recipes.opendocsociety.org

And in addition workshops, tutorials and masterclasses Manuals a newsletter that keeps you up to date In short: lower thresholds.

Helping to achieve real-world interoperability 7th ODF Plugfest Helping to achieve real-world interoperability “a technical interoperability event where suppliers sit side by side to test how their products work together, in order to iron out any different interpretations of (parts of the) technical specifications that power their software.”

That means you!

“In making ODF support compulsory, the Netherlands can rightly be called a forerunner. This workshop is [..] the place to share knowledge with each other. ODF applications must have the right degree of interoperability.” Frank Heemskerk Netherlands Minister for Foreign Trade

"Plugfests provide provide a neutral venue for implementors (commercial and open source), along with standards and policy experts, to work together to improve the interoperability of ODF applications. Without interoperability, standards are just pieces of paper. So Plugfests help bring the benefits of open standards closer to the users" Rob Weir, chair ODF TC

“a fascinating event that brought together ODF implementers from many countries to talk about the issues and collaborate on interoperability testing” Doug Mahugh, senior project manager for Office interoperability Microsoft

ODF PlugFest helps even small companies and individual developers who have limited resources to focus their activities on important issues. Lots of inspiring ideas and a great learning experience. Jakub Ondrusek, Comsultia (SK)

ODF plugfests Royal Library June 15/16, 2009, The Hague (The Netherlands) Fondazione Cassa Risparmio Orvieto November 2/3 2009, Orvieto (Italy) University of Granada April 15-17th 2010, Granada (Spain) Belgian Federal Government October 14-15th 2010, Brussels (Belgium) Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead February 24-25th 2011, RBWaM (UK) Bundesmin. des Innern / für Wirtschaft und Technologie. July 14-15th 2011, RBWaM (UK)

Slides courtesy of Doug Mahugh, Microsoft

Say cheese ;) 7th plugfest will be held November 17-18th 2011 in The Netherlands Hosted by the Netherlands in Open Connection and OpenDoc Society Organised in the city of Gouda

You are warmly invited What will be new Combined with a dedicated ODF developer event for auxiliary vendors and integrators that deliver to NL government Already commitment from several large vendors with products doing: Document generation Document management/mid office Record management You are warmly invited