“Texas and Minnesota may become the second and third U.S. states
to adopt ODF (Open Document Format for XML) as the standard file
format for government documents instead of the file format that
Microsoft uses in its Office 2007 software suite.“Two separate bills up for legislative consideration in each
state propose to mandate the use of an open, XML-based file format
that is ‘interoperable among diverse internal and external
platforms and applications; fully published and available
royalty-free; implemented by multiple vendors; and controlled by an
open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process
for evolution of the standard,’ according to the Minnesota House of
Representatives bill, which can be found here…”