Originally posted to cyberdash:

ZDNet announces that the Danish Board of Technology has released the English translation of their extensive report encouraging the Danish government to require open source and open standards. Note the interest in open XML standards for documentation:

The Board recommended that the Danish government take an active role in promoting an open, XML-based alternative for file formats, either by switching to OpenOffice's XML format or launching an EU-wide project to develop a new format.

I'd be on the side for OpenOffice. XML is the native file format for OpenOffice. With version OpenOffice 1.1, all I do is change an OpenOffice file tag--such as .sxw for text documents--to .zip. Then extract the files and read the XML files contained within the folder in a text editor.

From what I understand, support for the format is also growing. KOffice, the KDE office suite which is popular on the Linux desktop, is switching to the OpenOffice XML standard as their native format for the KOffice 1.4 version.