Joel Spolsky on how the binary MS Office file formats became so crappy and on some workarounds to avoid having to deal with them.
The OpenDocument format ODF is not simply the existing OpenOffice.org format documented and set as standard. It is a joint effort of several different interested groups (alternative link to David A. Wheeler's own site) working together under the roof of the OASIS organisation. One such group is the KOffice team (interview)
From an interview with key developers of the KOffice suite:
The Open Document Format is the file format for electronic office documents. It is standardized as ISO/IEC 26300. Implementors include OpenOffice.org and KOffice.