JRepin

Members of OASIS Open, the global open source and standards organization, have approved the Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications V1.4 as an OASIS Standard, the organization’s highest level of ratification. ODF V1.4 improves developer documentation, adds new features, and maintains full backward compatibility.

The release of ODF V1.4 coincides with the 20th anniversary of ODF as an OASIS Standard. Over two decades, ODF has served as a vendor-neutral, royalty-free format for office documents, ensuring that files remain readable, editable, and interoperable across platforms. Governments and international organizations, including NATO, the European Commission, and countries across multiple continents, have adopted ODF for document exchange.

“ODF V1.4 is the effort to evolve the ODF format to its newer challenges, adding relevant clarification and additions to the existing ODF V1.3,” said Patrick Durusau, OpenDocument TC co-chair. “We are pushing hard to meet expectations of the Office software industry.”

OpenDocument V1.4 contains enhancements in accessibility, professional document formatting, and advanced functionality across text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Improvements include better support for assistive technologies, enhanced visual design capabilities, and expanded features for data analysis and technical documentation. These updates strengthen OpenDocument’s role as a comprehensive solution for modern workplace productivity and inclusive document creation.

“ODF provides a vendor-neutral foundation for office productivity and collaboration worldwide. With V1.4, the standard continues to evolve, supporting cloud collaboration, richer multimedia, and standardized security,” said Svante Schubert, OpenDocument TC co-chair. “The format will remain reliable across platforms for years to come. Looking ahead, ODF is moving beyond document exchange toward standardized, semantic change-based collaboration — enabling precise, meaningful sharing of interoperable changes across platforms.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/39190924

Despite heavy criticism from civil society and large parts of the EU Parliament, the EU Commission has now published its proposal for the “Digital Omnibus”. Contrary to the Commission's official press release, these changes are not “maintaining the highest level of personal data protection”, but massively lower protections for Europeans. While having basically no real benefit for average European small and medium businesses, the proposed changes are a gift to US big tech as they open up many new loopholes for their law departments to exploit. Schrems: “This is the biggest attack on European’s digital rights in years. When the Commission states that it ‘maintains the highest standards’, it clearly is incorrect. It proposes to undermine these standards.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38782740

As gradually leaked the last days by various news outlets, the EU Commission has secretly set in motion a potentially massive reform of the GDPR. If internal drafts become reality, this would have significant impact on people's fundamental right to privacy and data protection. The reform would be part of the so-called "Digital Omnibus" which was supposed to only bring targeted adjustments to simplify compliance for businesses. Now, the Commission proposes changes to core elements like the definition of "personal data" and all data subject's rights under the GDPR. The leaked draft also suggests to give AI companies (like Google, Meta or OpenAI) a blank check to suck up European's personal data. In addition, the special protection of sensitive data like health data, political views or sexual orientation would be significantly reduced. Also, remote access to personal data on PCs or smart phones without consent of the user would be enabled. Many elements of the envisaged reform would overturn CJEU case law, violate European Conventions and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. If this extreme draft will become the official position of the European Commission, will only become clear on 19 November, when the "Digital Omnibus" will be officially presented. Schrems: "This would be a massive downgrading of European's privacy ten years after the GDPR was adopted."