Happy DFD 2014

Today is Document Freedom Day (DFD) 2014. DFD is an annual celebration of and opportunity to promote the use of open formats and standards for digital documents and takes place on the last Wednesday in March each year.

Document freedom means documents that are free can be used in any way that the author intends. They can be read, transmitted, edited, and transformed using a variety of tools.

Open standards are formats which everybody can use free of charge and restriction. They come with compatibility “built-in” – the way they work is shared publicly and any organisation or person can use them in their products and services without asking for permission. Open Standards are the foundation of co-operation and modern society.

Below is a cartoon strip to illustrate the importance of open formats and standards. Click on the image for the full-sized version.

Here at Bristol Wireless we’re reliant on open standards to function. Open formats are important to us too: we’ve been using ODF as our standard format for sharing documents internally ever since its inception.

Isn’t it about time you ditched closed formats and embraced openness too?