In a press release issued today, it was announced that the International Standards Organisation (ISO) is to adopt OpenType as the basis for a new open font format within the MPEG-4 multimedia standard. In practical terms, what I understand this to mean is that the current 4.1 version of the OpenType specification will be adopted as an ISO standard, subject the the same processes for extension and revision as other ISO standards. In other words, Microsoft and Adobe will not own this version of the specification in the same way that they have in the past.

I believe, but am not sure, that this agreement does not cover OpenType Layout features, which are an appendix to the font format specification and are, in a sense, a particular implementation of the format rather than part of the format itself. This means that registering of new layout features would not require an ISO review and balloting process.