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Belgian Gov't requires ODF From 09/2008
An anonymous reader writes "The Belgian government has decided all government agencies will be required to use only open document standards from September 2008 onwards. One year earlier, they should be able to read them. In practice this means only ODF will be supported, although OpenXML will be considered if it becomes an accepted standard, and enough applications use it. According to a Belgian Microsoft-spokesman, Microsoft is considering supporting ODF (article in Dutch)."
Congrats to Microsoft on getting so many people/businesses to allow their data to be locked up in a format they have no control over for so long.
Too bad the 10+ billion dollar a year party's over for the folks up in Redmond.
Four little words. Cold day in Hell. Some reason will be found in a few months to delay the decision until Microsoft's format can be considered instead. When it comes to governments, money still talks
of course, I'd LOVE to be proved wrong, but where is the great German Linux migration, hmm?
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
You can tell they've definitely made up their minds !!!
Who needs a
MS is "considering" supporting ODF. They will continue to "consider" it and will go so far as to "almost promise" that ODF support will come. Once the Belgian government signs another contract with Microsoft based on the "near promises" and "strongly worded statements indicating that MS will indeed support ODF," Microsoft will decide that it's not feasible. They simply won't have the resources to devote to such a task.
This guy's the limit!
You know what that means, right? It means that not accepting MS Office files is just the tip of the iceberg. It means every other format the government uses will have to be open too, including audio/video codecs, and -- best yet -- CAD FORMATS!
As a civil engineering student and Free Software advocate, this is really exciting, because right now AutoCAD has a near-monopoly on CAD for civil engineering applications, to the point where governments often require its native format (.DWG, .DXF) for contract proposals and such. Don't get me wrong -- AutoCAD isn't a bad program, but it's a Windows-only one, which makes me constantly frustrated at work. Mandating use of an open standard format might give a boost to competing, cross platform, software.
Incidentally, I ran across this website that has a lot of good information about this: the Open Design Alliance. From their FAQ:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
As MS employee, I can promiss we will not only support ODF, but extend ODF to many new ways our customers are excited to experience.
839*929
My mind hurts.it hurts.but I like the translated title!
-
Government exiles microsoft documents
As from September 2008 its all digital office documents of the federal government Odf-bestanden. ODF or open document Format are a file format for office documents that previous month officially were accepted by the international standard organisation ISO. It opens, standard '', which by software developers at discretion can be used to develop applications. ODF are with that a potential competitor for its own file formats which the softwarereus Microsoft use in its office software Microsoft Office. The federal council of ministers took last Friday the radical make decision Odf-standaard as from September 2008 obliges at all federal public authorities. One years rather all services must be already able Odf-documenten read. According to the profession booklet IT professional Belgium the first country is in the world that such a step does, and this way de facto the use of among others the microsoft formats prohibits. Toch the door for Microsoft is entirely not yet dense. The company stands now for the choice: or are programmes for Odf-bestanden open it, or it itself develops an open standard which can be used beside ODF. The most important candidate for that is it open XML developed by Microsoft. But according to peter Strickx, the agent for software-cog-softwarestandaarden at the federal government, open XML must become for that firstly recognised officially and must voldoene software applications be there which support the format. According to microsoft spokesman frank the Graeve are also considered supporting ODF in Office-software.
What is needed is critical mass. Having a USA state and a few small countries (same size as a USA state) move to this is no big deal to MS. Yet.
What is needed is a country like Japan, China, or EU to move to this. Then the party is over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Our sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God save the King.
Here you go guys:
Government bans Microsoft-documents
From September 2008 onwards all digital office-documents of the federal
government wil be ODF-files.
ODF or open document format is a file format for office documents that
was officially accepted last month by the international
standards-organisation ISO.
It concerns an "open standard", that can be used at will by software
developers to create applications. ODF is therefor a potential
concurrent for the own file formats the software giant Microsoft uses
in its office software Microsoft Office.
The federal ministrial counsel took the radical decision last friday to
make the ODF-standards obligatory from September 2008 onwards for all
federal governmental services. One year earlier all services must
already be able to read the ODF documents. According to the magazine IT
Professional Belgium is the first country in the world to take such
measures, and thus de facto forbids the usage of the Microsoft formats.
However the door isn't entirely closed for Microsoft. The company now
has the choise: either they open their programs for ODF-files, or they
develop a standard themselves that can be used next to ODF. The most
important candidate for the latter is the by Microsoft designed Open
XML.
But according to Peter Strickx, who is responsible for software
standards at the federal government, Open XML has to be first
officially recognized and there have to be enough applications
supporting the format. According to Microsoft spokesman Frank De Graeve
they also consider supporting ODF in the Office software.
int main(void) {while(1) fork(); return 0;}
Or subvert?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
As much as I am ashamed to admit it, however, I use OpenOffice but save in the .doc format.
Maybe what we need is a support group to expand odf. Let me start.
"Hi, I'm Andrew and I have been using .doc for ten years."
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Here comes the deep discounts to Belgium for MS Office
./ bots to mod down my comments about MS.
Here comes yet another bad business practice for MS stockholders to suffer at the hands of WalmartSoft.
Here come the
It'll be an even colder day in hell if Microsoft refuses to support a file format that everyone is going to use. Doing so would force people to use non-Microsoft software. Microsoft are not stupid. They would rather let their software read/write open file formats than have no one using their software.
Agreed. It's sad, but true. Very few stick to their guns on these issues. MS comes in with their welcome wagon and gives away so many deals they are actually being paid to use product x. Then it doesn't become about idealology anymore and more about free money. I wish it weren't this way, but it is.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
This is a big step forward.
The Belgium federal government might not be the biggest government in the world, it's still a big (read rich) government.
You can bet your ass that many sotware companies are allready thinking of how they can make money out of this.
This will increase the amount of secondary support and software available for OpenOffice.
Also, if your biggest customer is the government (which is true for many companies), it would be logical to use the same file format. Especially if you can use it for free.
Thirdly, if the government publishes documents on it's website, they will now do it in ODF, instead of MS-Office. Which means that many civilians will install ODF compatible software, just to read them.
Belgian Gov't requires ODF From 09/2008
WANTED: Somebody to go forward in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box @#!%, Oakview, CA 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own document formats. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
what's this? slashdot actually giving people a reason not to RTFA now?
On a related note, I edit a well-established, peer-reviewed academic journal, and am presently putting together an issue on the ethics of open source software (to appear June, 2007). Anyone who may be interested in contributing is invited to email me, and I'll send the CFP.
Well if you look at the timeframe between the widespread of "word" for the "dummy" secretaries, and the time for ODF to be in use... It's what? 15 years?
:) Downloadable music and movies for cheap and no DRM, no M$/APPLE/SONY tax.
Plus concurrence is back. Word is buggy and the GUI sucsk. It's not hard to do a better job, but the bottleneck is compatibility with "word" format. So what? Well. Concurrence is again possible on the word processor market. Hurra!!
Same thinking for DRMs. they're just starting out of she shelves. Will it take another 20 yrs before we have legislations that outlaw them? 2026? Well.. I can leave with a 20yrs gap without a music-video purchase. But can the RIAA and MPAA?
It's good to see that sooner or later ppl get to understand technology, and can easily get rid of abuse in a few years..
I can't help but dream of the day with HDMI, DRM, zones on DVD, TV websites no longer blocked coz u cannot watch the program outside of the US
Well if you look at the timeframe between the widespread of "word" for the "dummy" secretaries, and the time for ODF to be in use... It's what? 15 years?
:) Downloadable music and movies for cheap and no DRM, no fucking M$/APPLE/SONY tax. No fucking Microsoft windows needed to watch movie, read ebook, play songs...
Same thinking for DRMs. Will it take another 20 yrs before we have legislations that outlaw them? 2026? Well.. I can leave with a 20yr gap without a music/video purchase. But can the RIAA and MPAA?
It's good to see that sooner or later ppl get to understand technology, and can easily get rid of abuse in a few years..
I can't help but dream of the day with all that crap outlawed: HDMI, DRM, zones on DVD, TV websites no longer blocked coz u cannot watch the program outside of the US
Why is it that I can't help picturing the Thunderbirds launch sequence when I think of all those Microsoft lobbyists rushing off to Belgium?
Massachusetts still seems to be on schedule for converting to ODF; hopefully the European governments won't back out, either.
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe!
Dupe Dupe Dupe Dupe!
Dupity Dupe, Dupe de Dupe!
For many people Microsoft Word is a de facto standard, they wouldn't consider using anything else even though not that long ago they probably would have used WordPerfect and before that WordStar.
The point being that de facto standards can be toppled both from within the proprietary alternatives and the free software programs available. Microsoft has learned that to keep their users locked into Microsoft Office formats they have to do things we in the free software world can't do and wouldn't want to do—change the format, fail to document how the format really works, and provide no means of allowing others to improve upon any particular implementation of support for the format.
So don't get so lost in how things are that you fail to see how things were and how they can be better for users.
Digital Citizen
For some information about other possible file format standards used by the Belgian government, see Belgif, the BELgian Governement Interoperability Framework. A lot of it is still in early stages, but it is nice knowing that the are discussing this in the open, with all possible partners. At least, they are discussing it with the other five governments in Belgium (yes, it seems like a mess. But we can live with it).
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
Disclaimer: I don't know much about XML
:-)1 44611543
C onstraints
Because ODF is XML-based, there are fast standard techniques to verify whether a given document is 100% ODF compliant or not.
This would mean that a lot less "cheating" is possible than with a difficult-to-implement binary format.
To be fair, the same would hold for Office Open XML (that's what Microsoft calls their format -- i wonder why), so if that also becomes a standard you'd be able to choose
On groklaw I read a discussion on the legal and technical merits of both:
(DISCLAIMER: its written by people from the OpenDocument fellowship, so it's understandably biased towards ODF)
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051125
And this is what I could find on validation on the W3 consortium website (as I said, I don't know anything about XML):
http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-1/#concepts-schema
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Oooohhh....Belgium!
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
The Belgian government is really rather small. You must not forget Belgium is a federal state, and as such has NINE governments. That ONE of these NINE will be using ODF is hardly a "critical mass" as some may call it.
I'm not saying be a complete nazi about it, and I'm not advocating doing anything as stupid as sending your resume in a format someone might NOT be able to read (which includes Word IMHO). I'm saying that on occasion, you should consider if you can "help the cause" by sending out a document in odf.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
"OpenXML will be considered if it becomes an accepted standard, and enough applications use it"
yes, sure it will become an accepted standard -- by sheer weight of their monopoly on desktop OS.
and plenty applications will use it: M$ Office Basic Edition, M$ Office Starter Edition, M$ Office Professional Edition, M$ Office Director's Cut Edition etc
btw, M$ will support ODF when WinFS is finally released.
I don't feel like it...
"The Belgian government has decided"
A minor nitpick: this is a decision by the Flemish government
On the other hand, Belgium is still the least democratic country in Europe. Podcasting is heavily censured by the government and members of the biggest political party (that is kept in the opposition by the leftists using all kinds of dirty, undemocratic tricks) are constantly being pestered and prosecuted. Within a few minutes, you will see messages by the government's sponsered forum-fillers starting to appear. This is very common. Their task is to keep the idea in place that all is well in Belgium.
If you can't compete on the merits (ODF is 10 times slower than OpenXML when loading spreadsheets, for example), compete with government mandates.
Belgium is massively investing in the renewal of its administration.
... and lately :
....
....
Lately we heard of many projects :
- They plan to hire 7.000 cs by the end of 2007.
- The e-ID card
- Now people can pay their taxes on the web
- The ODF format.
It's not just an idea thrown into the air.
That's a massive structural update at all the level of the organization of the belgian governement.
Now if you are in this context and you have to choose for a common document format, would you really
choose MS Word (.doc) file format ??
A format that you have no control on it whatsoever. A format that will be deprecated next year when OFFICE 2007 goes live,
or when OFFICE whatever is released
Will you really throw in the trash belgian taxpayers money ?
I don't think MS Word is a sound choice when you have to answer for your choices and you wanna cut costs
Microsoft has learned that to keep their users locked into Microsoft Office formats they have to do things we in the free software world can't do and wouldn't want to do--change the format
Which is presumably why my copy of Office97 isn't able to open documents saved by the latest and greatest versions of MS Office.
Except it can. MS don't do this, and haven't done it since they redesigned the format to use an extendible syntax, which was (I believe) first implemented in Word95. Older versions only fail to open documents that actually use features that didn't exist in the older version. Generally, documents degrade reasonably well to something the older version can show even in that case.