OpenDocument Format

The SDA would like to highlight the importance of carefully considering file formats for long-term preservation of documents. OpenDocument format (ODF) is an excellent choice for preservation because, as stated in Resolution 2008-1 of the Canadian Library Association’s 2008 Annual General Meeting, “interoperable, vendor-neutral file format standards play a key role in ensuring preservation and future access.” The CLA also noted that “it is essential that governments and other public bodies take steps to ensure that future generations can access information created today.” ODF will not be phased out due to planned obsolescence as commercial products tend to be and it’s code is available to anyone who wants to work with it.

More information from Wikipedia:

The OpenDocument format (ODF) is a file format for electronic office documents
such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents.
While the specifications were originally developed by Sun, the standard was
developed by the Open Office XML technical committee of the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) consortium and based
on the XML format
originally created and implemented by the OpenOffice.org office suite (see OpenOffice.org XML).
In addition to being a free and open OASIS standard, it is published (in
one of its version 1.0 manifestations) as an ISO/IEC
international standard, ISO/IEC 26300:2006 Open Document Format for Office
Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0.[2]
Published ODF standards meet the common definitions of an open standard, meaning
they are freely available and implementable.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument