French Government Recommends Standardizing on ODF

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "From the InfoWorld article: All French government publications should be made available in OpenDocument Format (ODF), according to a report commissioned by the French prime minister. The new report also suggests that France ask its European partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European level. It is recommended that the government will fund a research center dedicated to open-source software security as well, adds the article."

Comments

Re:How long before the Microsoft rebuttal report?

[zeux]

Unfortunately for them, Microsoft's money doesn't buy a lot in France. Recently, the whole administration switched to Firefox and Thunderbird. It started with the state police (300000 computers if I remember correctly) and then continued with the rest of the state employees (I don't have the number but it's definitely a lot).

Basically, and from what I heard, the idea is to first swith the Windows softwares the administration uses to equivalent softwares that do exist on other OS the ultimate goal being to switch from Windows to Linux when all the applications are replaced. I guess the ODF switch is just another step in that direction.

Government websites and web services are already all built on open source software. I'm happy to hear that my government is spending less on windows licences and I do really hope that they'll make it and that it will be used as an example for other European countries.

Re:The French attitude

[jabuzz]

For over 30 years the USA harboured convicted terrorists and openly allowed them to fundraise. This included the current administration. It was not till 9/11 that they decided to clamp down on it. In the meantime hundreds of innocent victims in Western Europe suffered or died as a result of US financed terrorism. Oh I forgot the IRA are not terrorists because they are not Muslims. I believe the French had issues with some Algerian terrorists being given haven in the USA.