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Few new technologies have been adopted as widely in the software development industry (and probably many other industries) as wikis. They have become an indispensable collaboration tool. Wikis have their problems, however. Input, although supposedly very simple, still requires that users learn a new mark-up notation, and most wikis have special tags, or macros, that are specific to each different product. Without learning the special macros, content is typically less capable of displaying multi-media, spreadsheets with embedded formulas, or interactive features than is HTML. Probably the greatest body of application knowledge among users, however, is in office software, which delivers many of these features. If you were to develop a wiki that used the Open Document Format as the native language for its content, then average users could use the tools that they are most familiar with to add fairly sophisticated content.

If the development of an ODF-based wiki included close integration with office applications, then submissions could be made almost as easy as a "save as" operation. Something like a WebDav or graphical ssh interface would be required to locate the wiki server and save new or modified content to the correct location in the wiki's content hierarchy. Also, setting permissions for view-ability and edit-ability would be required. For example, I might want to add an end-user FAQ to my organisation's wiki, so I would want to make it visible to the general public, but only editable for the support, IT, and tech pubs groups within the organisation. Also, I might want to add some HR records to the wiki, so I would need to be able to set appropriately restrictive permissions. These submissions features could possibly be added to the office applications as a plugin.

An ODF-based wiki that used ODF-based office applications as editing and authoring tools would greatly lower the barrier to entry for contributors (anyone who can use office applications) and provide a good mechanism for supporting advanced content (the capabilities already supported by the Open Document Format). While the wiki server would run separately, integrating submissions capabilities into an ODF-based office software suite, such as KOffice/Callibra, and distributing it along with the ODF-based wiki server, would greatly increase the value and interest of the suite for many users.