Members of the Oasis standards consortium have launched a campaign to educate the marketplace on the value of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard.

The newly formed Oasis ODF Adoption Committee, which includes IBM, Novell, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, believes that raising awareness of the open file format will increase the demand for and availability of ODF-conforming products.

"The life of a document may far exceed that of a particular software product or vendor," said IBM's Don Harbison, convener and proposed chairman of the ODF Adoption Committee.

"Users have a right to retain control over their work, no matter when their documents were created or what tool was used to create them. Open standards in general, and ODF in particular, can help ensure that right.

"Our team will work to help users understand what's really at stake here and the advantages ODF offers for platform- and application-independent documents."

ODF was approved as an Oasis standard in May 2005 and was submitted by Oasis to the International Organization for Standardization International Electrotechnical Commission's Joint Technical Committee for further approval as a de jure standard.

ODF is maintained and advanced by the Oasis OpenDocument Technical Committee, which was formed in November 2002.

The Oasis Adoption Committee will work to tailor the standard to better meet the needs of the market and help guide future enhancements to the standard.

Other activities of the group include the creation of white papers, FAQs, overview documents, case studies and other educational material.

The group will serve as a community-building resource by providing ODF information through the Oasis and XML.org websites, along with newsletters, webinars, conferences and other outreach venues.

The committee will also host proof-of-concept demonstrations to highlight the ways in which ODF can be used with XML schemas and industry vocabularies that can be integrated with web services.

The group also plans to coordinate its efforts with other ODF promotional groups around the world, including the OpenDocument Foundation, which has joined the ODF Adoption Committee, and the recently formed ODF Alliance, which intends to "focus efforts on influencing public policy through governments".

"The mission of Oasis extends beyond development to encompass convergence and adoption," said James Bryce Clark, director of standards development at Oasis.

"By promoting ODF awareness and education through this new committee, participants maximise their collective resources within the security of the Oasis open process.

"Coordinating our centralised agenda with the efforts of ODF support groups around the world will further leverage and fuel the ODF momentum that continues to build."