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Questions and answers about OpenFormula and MathML
OpenFormula is the informal name of a draft specification to deal with calculated formulas within OpenDocument, such as those found in spreadsheets. As work progresses, more applications are able to exchange spreadsheet files, allowing free choice of applications. A full draft, complete with all function definitions is expected by October this year. OASIS' subcommittee has published a short, non-technical overview of OpenFormula.
The development is very focused in specific areas and representatives from implementors are working together to create a specification that will withstand the tests of time. Representatives include heavy-weights like Dan Bricklin, co-creator of the spreadsheet, Rob Weir from IBM/Lotus 1-2-3 (the spreadsheet that became ubiquitous), Dr. Andreas J. Guelzow and Jody Goldberg from Gnumeric, David Faure and Tomas Mecir from KDE's KOffice, and Eike Rathke for OpenOffice.org and Sun's StarOffice.
Note that OpenFormula is for re-calculated formulas, ones that are used. MathML, is the standard for the display of arbitrary mathematical expressions in XML-based documents. So of course it, too, is part of OpenDocument already and OpenFormula uses MathML to describe functions.