If you saw Alex Brown's offensive suggestion that some think ODF should just "fade away" in News Picks, it no doubt made your blood boil. Here's where you can put some of that energy, if you are so inclined: Rob Weir has announced the new technical committee, ODF Interoperability and Conformance TC, and he's asking for individuals and projects to please sign up to help out.

Last year, when I was socializing the idea of creating the OASIS ODF Interoperability and Conformance TC, I gave a presentation I called "ODF Interoperability: The Price of Success". The observation was that standards that fail never need to deal with interoperability.

OASIS members give their approval to the final version 1.0 of the CMIS specification, designed to increase interoperability between CMS systems and applications

Everyone interested in interoperability within the context of public service delivery is cordially invited to send suggestions aiming at contributing to the implementation of the European Interoperability Strategy.

It might seem strange that interoperability - as unsexy a feature as there ever was - would suddenly become the apple of the marketing departments eye, not least because consumers are increasingly gravitating towards products for which a degree of interoperability is assumed.

No move by Microsoft to share information with its competitors will ever be taken at face value, and certainly yesterday's new Interoperability Principle will come under very close scrutiny. Is this the opening of the floodgates the EC has been demanding?

Seeing some news during the usual "surfing" the Internet, I had a wonderful conversation with Ioakim, which transformed into a growing concern about "what happens with the interoperability"? Just before 1 month, at NTUA a Meeting on Interoperability was held with the support of the Greek Microsoft Innovation Centre in cooperation with the Greek Interoperability Center and Oracle Greece.

"...'This case is over and interoperability won. The European Court made clear that interoperability information should not be kept secret and the agreement shows that Microsoft saw no way to continue its obstruction of interoperability in this area. This establishes a standard which everyone will have to meet from now on,' summarizes Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)..."

"The Wednesday of the Technical Plenary Week offers a unique opportunity for our broad W3C Community (Working, Interest and Coordination Groups; Advisory Committee Representatives; Advisory Board; Technical Architecture Group; and Team) who have registered to gather in one room and discuss technical topics of broad interest to the attendees, and of significant importance to past, present and futur