ODF: The Inevitable Format

Many unreadable documents will never be missed, but responsible public policy demands that government documents–contracts, deeds, or court records that remain in force for decades or even centuries–must be archived and accessible. Whatever the case, when data is stored and shared on legacy or defunct proprietary formats, over time it will either become expensive to access or disappear entirely.

When it comes to digitally creating, sharing, and storing documents, the technology to prevent format-based decay already exists and is in wide (and growing) use.

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