Norway Moves Towards Mandatory Use of ODF and PDF

Andy Updegrove writes "Norway has become the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use. The Norwegian recommendation was revealed by Minister of Renewal Heidi Grande Roys, on behalf of the Cabinet-appointed Norwegian Standards Council. If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.' According to the press release, the recommendation will be the subject of open hearings, with opinions to be rendered to the Cabinet before August 20 this summer.The Cabinet would then make its own (and in this case binding) recommendation to the Norwegian government."

Comments

When will the US join?

[lixee]

This is excellent news. I'm expecting the US to be one of the last to adopt it because of the influence MS has on politics. Any thoughts?

Re:When will the US join?

[zappepcs]

I don't know if they will be last, but I can say that this can only be good news. Open standards for documents. The mere fact that MS is fighting this with a 'standard' of their own should be indication enough to anyone that MS means to keep them locked into MS products.

Sure, they (MS) think the MS OpenXML thingy is better, that's their job to think that way. The simple truth is that an open standard would comoditize MS products.

I'm going to bet that the Internet community in general will simple work its way around to ODF without MS and MS formats will slowly die off. Enough people and governments are asking for it, it will eventually happen. Many businesses really don't care as long as all their users can use the new and the old documents without training.

Re:When will the US join?

[Short Circuit]

The mere fact that MS is fighting this with a 'standard' of their own should be indication enough to anyone that MS means to keep them locked into MS products. Well, duh. That's what you do when you make your money from software licenses. The only thing that "obligates" them to make emigration possible is their status as a convicted monopoly.

If Flash hadn't come along, and Sun had locked down Java (and made a deal with the top two or three OS vendors to distribute their product), people would be saying the same thing about Sun.

Re:When will the US join?

[CastrTroy]

The US is the last to adopt any kind of standard. They still haven't even picked up on the metric system yet. How do you expect then to standardize of document formats?

Re:When will the US join?

[Dancindan84]

I expect they'll do it by 2454432 JDN

Re:When will the US join?

[nine-times]

Sure, they (MS) think the MS OpenXML thingy is better, that's their job to think that way. The simple truth is that an open standard would comoditize MS products.

Not necessarily-- well, maybe I don't know quite what you mean by "commoditize". But really, insofar as Microsoft is competing fairly in the Office-suite market, what file formats people use should be relatively unimportant. The only additional cost to them is to include read/write support for ODF into their applications, which I'm guessing would be a pretty minimal cost. Beyond that, there's no good reason why Microsoft should care if my documents are stored in PDF, DOC, DOCX, ODF, HTML, or anything else. So long as they're trying to sell MS Office on the merits of the programs themselves, Microsoft's concern shouldn't be for what file format users choose, but whether MS Office is the best editor for those file formats. They should be eager to support ODF even better than OOo.

However, they aren't doing that, which demonstrates something about the culture at Microsoft. They don't want open competition (no surprise here). They don't want to be in a position where they have to make the best software, but instead are more concerned with maintaining vendor lock-in.

Re:When will the US join?

[Matt Perry]

Actually, let's be totally fair here. Yes, having everyone in the world use the same measurement system would make a lot of things easier.

Yes, let's do be fair. Every country in the world except for Burma, the US, and Liberia currently use the metric system as their primary method of measurement.

Having everyone in the world speak the same language would make things even easier -- indeed the benefits of a common language are far greater than the benefits of a common measuring system.

Especially if 94 percent of the world already spoke the same language it would make sense for the other 6 percent to learn it too. 6% being the 350 million people in USA, Burma, and Liberia.

Re:When will the US join?

[tedric]

I think you are both wrong with your analogies. The metric system, French and English are all "open standards". There are pros and cons for all of them, but you can more or less easily translate from one language to another, compute from one system to another.

With closed document formats it's like if you are an American visiting France and you're not allowed to talk French.

Re:When will the US join?

[molarmass192]

How about if we in the US adopt French as our official language and the French will revert to imperial measurements ... sounds fair right? I mean it only fair ... we only have to undo 400 years of historical use of English as opposed to France having to undo 2000 years of historical use of French. I know you're joking around, but you're not comparing apples to apples here. A more equivocal trade would be for us to adopt the Euro while Europe reverts to the imperial system.

Re:When will the US join?

[smilindog2000]

Competing fairly is something Microsoft hasn't had to do for years. Otherwise, we would all get the OS and Office for free, or close to free, as OSes and word processors are mature technology which has already been fully paid for. How else could OpenOffice and Linux be so successful? In my experience, when a product is still valuable in the marketplace, vendors prefer to sell them rather than give them away for free. Microsoft continues to extort payments for software we already paid for, simply because of it's monopolistic position. The rest of us (I'm a software developer by trade) have to actually innovate in order to convince clients to pony up.

Re:When will the US join?

[bobbyandck]

So you want to be totally fair ?

First of all France, what have they got to do with this ?

One measurement system would be fantastic, if only to facilitate international exchanges (check out the mess in the international commodities or metals markets for an example) it is even more useful than having every country drive on the right. But as for languages, not only it is a very strong part of national identity, but it is also much more difficult to change. And if you would imagine taking one language for all countries, you probably should take Chinese or Spanish.

P.S.: as a side point, don't you find that the metric system is actually quite logical ? going from distance to weight through volumes and all that just with base 10 conversions ?

Re:When will the US join?

[bentcd]

So, we'll make a bi-lateral treaty -- we'll accept the metric system as our official measuring standard as soon as France accepts English as its official language.
I'm afraid you're a little for this one - that particular deal was struck long ago: Britain would accept the French metric system for mapmaking purposes if France would agree to use the Greenwich meridian. You will have to find some other bargaining chip if you want to avoid looking like a sore loser :-)

Re:When will the US join?

[644bd346996]

Go away, and don't come back until you know what SI stands for. Then you will know what France has to do with this topic, and you will sufficiently informed in that respect to justifiably comment here.

Re:When will the US join?

[CastrTroy]

Actually, if you want to have everybody speak the same language then you'd probably be better off with Esperanto. Because like the metric system, it's designed to be logical. Using the imperial measurement system is akin to speaking any other language, when things are very ambiguous, and the rules can vary from location to location. For instance, when measuring in gallons, you could use US gallons, or Imperial gallons, both of which have different meanings.

Re:When will the US join?

[cheater512]

I thought Chinese was the most common language not English. :P

Re:When will the US join?

[bobbyandck]

I guess you're speaking of the "Système International", yep, I know that, and before you even think about it, I didn't check it up online. Ok, they started the metric system, but is that the reason why France would have to change their language ? when really most of the world (not all, but the majority) decided to take the system willingly just because it was so sensible.

Re:When will the US join?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

The US is the last to adopt any kind of standard. They still haven't even picked up on the metric system yet. How do you expect then to standardize of document formats?

The American people go wherever they want to go. The government does adopt standards, for example all US federal government agencies use metric for *everything*, but it doesn't force anybody else to. It is part of our idea of what a free society should be. We don't want governments micromanaging us. Some states began to deploy road signs that were in metric Km/h, but most people of those districts complained so they quickly removed them. Any single individual state in the US is still free to do this if they want, but they choose not to.

That said, what ultimately decides what format we use to store our office documents in (as if that is a somehow peace making, profoundly world changing topic in the first place) is up to the users themselves. The government can say that all government usage will follow x standard, but in the US that only affects the government, because they have no right to tell us what we will use.

Frankly I think ODF is a joke. I read a good argument as to why we should use HTML instead, and IMO that would be the way to go. Completely open, everybody uses it already and there are many programs that can view it, and it already supports a *hell* of a lot more formatting options than *any* office document standard. All that you need to add is an editor that is more geared towards e.g. letter style writing, and an easier page break system.

Re:When will the US join?

[bobbyandck]

I guess you would be right about Esperanto on a logical point of view, I was rather thinking in terms of the worldwide cost of changing the language, so then taking the most used one is the best option.

Re:When will the US join?

[beyondkaoru]

lojban is the logical choice. it does seem to be western oriented though, much like esperanto.

it would make legal documents much better at least. ( "everyone should have the right to have bear arms on their wall!" )

Re:When will the US join?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Every country in the world except for Burma, the US, and Liberia currently use the metric system as their primary method of measurement.

Yep. That's why this evening I bought 2 pints of milk from the supermarket 2.6 miles from my home, travelling along roads with 20mph and 30mph speed limits to get there, probably with hideous fuel economy of about 20mpg, before returning home and walking to the pub so I could safely drink my pint of bitter without having to drive back, conveniently allowing me to pick up a quarter-pound burger for a late-night snack on my way home.

But yep, here in the UK we're metric through and through. :-)

Re:When will the US join?

[TeknoHog]

But as for languages, not only it is a very strong part of national identity, but it is also much more difficult to change.

Moreover, there are no 100% accurate translations between languages. There are different paradigms just like in programming languages, and all that cultural payload. However, different units of measurement are completely translatable.

Re:When will the US join?

[Chuq]

So, we'll make a bi-lateral treaty -- we'll accept the metric system as our official measuring standard as soon as France accepts English as its official language.

I think you'll find that a much higher percentage of French people can speak English, than Americans can speak French. Speaking two or three languages isn't that unusual in Europe.

Re:When will the US join?

[jbengt]

Funny thing, though, the USA has officially defined the inch, pound, etc. in terms of metric measurements for years.
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/laws/

Re:When will the US join?

[lena_10326]

They still haven't even picked up on the metric system yet

We (the US) do use metric. Saying we don't is a lie. We're just split between two systems. By the way, when was the last time anyone in in the US went to the grocery store to buy a 2-quart of soda? You didn't. You bought a 2-liter even though both units are labeled on the bottle.

Re:When will the US join?

[turing_m]

"Otherwise, we would all get the OS and Office for free, or close to free, as OSes and word processors are mature technology which has already been fully paid for. How else could OpenOffice and Linux be so successful?"

This is a good point. I think the current situation of software vendors jealously holding out for more money for the mature technology is actually good in a way. At least with something like OpenOffice and Linux, we can see the source if we want to. A free but closed Office and Windows would always be closed and there would be much less incentive to create or switch to an OSS alternative.

Re:When will the US join?

[Adhemar]

Can you point me to the text of such a deal?

As far as I know, the use of the metric system and the establishment of organisations to oversee the keeping of metric standards, was agreed upon in the Convention du Mètre of 1875. The United States signed the treaty in 1878 (but is a bit late in putting it in practise!), the United Kingdom in 1884.

Also in 1884, the Greenwich Prime Meridian was standardised at the International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. However, I believe France abstained when the vote was taken, and French maps continued to use the Paris Meridian for several decades afterwards.

Re:When will the US join?

[comradeeroid]

conveniently allowing me to pick up a quarter-pound burger for a late-night snack on my way home. Well, you might be intrested to know that I would buy a quarter-pounder even here in Sweden, if I could just force myself to enter a McDonalds. It's a brand name. Much like in lots of parts of the world the word for a Large Lorry is "Scania" or how an american might Hoover his apartment to get rid of the dirt on the floor. So that last part just isn't a good example. The pint in the pub isn't very good either, since it's an established volume of alcohol. You can buy Pints in Sweden as well, though we prefer the "Big Strong" volume instead. The pints of milk in the super market is a decent argument against the metrification of the UK though. And the speed limits. But surely you can see the diffrence.

Re:When will the US join?

[CastrTroy]

If people wanted to make legal documents easy to understand, and without contradictions then they would be able to do so in English, or any other language. Instead they make them impossible to understand, and contradictory, so that they may find flaws in them later if they wish to exit the contract. The only reason for making them so complicated is so that you can slip something unexpected past someone who can't get around all the legal jargon.

Re:When will the US join?

[CastrTroy]

How can a bottle of soda be both 2 litres and 2 quarts when those measurements aren't equal? A quart is roughly 1.1 Litres. which isn't really that close to 1 litre. If you bought 2 litres, and expected 2 quarts, you'd be missing .2 quarts.

Re:When will the US join?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sorry, but you're mistaken about the burgers. "Quarter Pounder" may be a brand name belonging to some fast food chain, but if I go into any of my local burger bars (not part of large chains), they all have 1/4lb burgers on the menu.

I'm afraid I don't understand your point about pints in a pub. How is my pint in a pub example not relevant, if my pint of milk example is? I honestly can't see the difference here; maybe it's a culture thing, and one would seem artificial in Sweden because you usually use a metric measure?

Re:When will the US join?

[ajs318]

Actually, the metric system was a British invention -- the French were making a right mess of it and had to ask us for help. In return for not taking the credit, we got to claim a French invention as our own. We didn't call in that favour until 1959, when we pretended to have invented front-wheel drive cars (which had been around in France since the 1930s).

Re:When will the US join?

[bentcd]

The timing says everything. While I certainly see that the agreement may not be very explicit (national pride was too much a part of the problem for any one side to want to be seen to give in), England's adoption of the metre in 1884 together with France desiding not to sink the Greenwich meridian in 1884 (which they could have done by voting against it - it was a very important country at the time) speaks volumes of discussions held behind closed doors.
Looking back, it is therefore easy to see that France sold its meridian in exchange for universal adoption of its system of measurements. It is equally easy to see that these things take a while to change even with a treaty in place, but that is to be expected.

Re:When will the US join?

[beyondkaoru]

ok, i know i'm getting off topic with this, but anyway, yeah there are a lot of problems with legal documents. a big problem, i think, is that they can get away with vagueness by expecting the judges to iron out the details -- which i think it a terrible idea. they should instead try to make laws more logically correct. lojban would probably help with a lot of things; i imagine it would simply be much easier to do this in it.

it might also be interesting to try using a libraries-of-code approach to legal documents, so they don't have to be so long explaining everything, and an appropriate change to the definitions could be made so long as the documents that depend on it are decently written:

#include "murder.h" //definitions of various kinds of murder :)

a judge's job is much too complicated as it is right now, and contracts are _way_ too complicated.

Re:When will the US join?

[Weedlekin]

"and the French will revert to imperial measurements"

The French never used Imperial measurements because, like the rest of Europe, they weren't a part of the British Empire. And for that matter, neither does the US, whose "English" measurements aren't quite the same as Imperial ones (a US pint for example is 0.473 litres, while an Imperial pint is 0.568 litres). This highlights a significant problem with the traditional measurement systems, which were characterised by analogous units (in Europe at any rate, most countries of which used based them on Roman ones) whose actual quantities could vary by significant amounts not only from country to country, but also between regions of the same country, and even from person to person, something which had been a common cause of disputes between merchants for centuries.

"A more equivocal trade would be for us to adopt the Euro while Europe reverts to the imperial system."

The only part of Europe that can "revert" to the Imperial system is Britain, because they're the only country who used it. Note also that Imperial units didn't exist until the 1824 Weights And Measures Act, which means that it's actually newer than the metric system, which France officially adopted in 1794 (although Napoleon suspended it temporarily in 1812).

Re:When will the US join?

[lena_10326]

You bought a 2-liter even though both units are labeled on the bottle.

I said it was labeled with both units not 2 quarts and 2 liters. Read more carefully next time.

Your desire to misunderstand is showing.

I hate PDF

[SQLGuru]

First, let me say that I like the concept of a single file format that can be read by any computer and displays in a consistent manner. From that aspect, I applaud PDF.

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option). The reader insists in "improving performance" by running a program in my system tray for which I must remove the configuration myself (no option).

This is also the same reason that I hate Quick Time, so it isn't limited to a single file type.

Layne

Re:I hate PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Fortunately since it's a published standard, there are other PDF readers other than the one from the vendor you describe...

Re:I hate PDF

[john83]

First, let me say that I like the concept of a single file format that can be read by any computer and displays in a consistent manner. From that aspect, I applaud PDF. I agree wholeheartedly.

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option). The reader insists in "improving performance" by running a program in my system tray for which I must remove the configuration myself (no option). I return my nerd badge unconditionally. How do I do this?

This is also the same reason that I hate Quick Time, so it isn't limited to a single file type. Everyone hates Quick Time.

Re:I hate PDF

[Englabenny]

There is no such requirement. Many operating systems (Ubuntu, OS X, and probably everyone except .. ) bundle other lighter and nicer PDF viewers because they are nicer to the users.

Is it a question of time before a lightweight, free software pdf reader captures the windows userbase as well?

Re:I hate PDF

[tajmorton]

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option).

Try another PDF viewer. KPDF and XPDF are both great for Linux/X users. For a barebones Windows viewer, try SumatraPDF.

If you're stuck with Adobe Acrobat for some reason, then you might try these instructions to make Acrobat run a lot faster.

Just thoughts...

Re:I hate PDF

[Constantine XVI]

err, Foxit Reader (win), KPDF (kde), Evince (GNOME), whatever OSX's built-in reader is, XPDF?
I don't remember the last time I used Acrobat

Re:I hate PDF

[Oswald]

It's amazing how slowly word is getting around, but you do not have to put up with Adobe's bullshit. This company makes a no-cost reader that absolutely blows Acrobat Reader away. It's lightweight, fast, stable and when you close the window, the process actually stops instead of just sitting in the background, screwing up your system.

Re:I hate PDF

[1u3hr]

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option). The reader insists in "improving performance" by running a program in my system tray for which I must remove the configuration myself (no option).

There are a number of methods for streamlining Adobe's reader. Eg. Adobe Reader SpeedUp. But give Adobe credit where it's due, they opened the PDF format long ago, so there are several alternative PFD readers (and writers) available if you don't like Adobe's, and this can only increase if it becomes more widely used. It's basically wired into OSX already.

Re:I hate PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove the acrotray entry from all the registry {HKLM,HKCU}\...\Run keys that list it

Or did you mean "how do I return my nerd badge?"? /grin

Re:I hate PDF

[jimstapleton]

Actually, I found that there are several readers, particularly Foxit in windows, and KPDF in most other operating systems, which handle PDFs quickly and efficiently.

That being said, even sticking to just adobe's reader/generator, and printers, I have found PDFs to print differently on multiple printers, and while usually reproduced fairly accurately, it's rarely a 100% thing.

Re:I hate PDF

[l0b0]

Wish I had mod points - Been using Foxit Reader for a couple years now, and it beats Adobe Reader hands down. Only free as in beer, tho.

Re:I hate PDF

[SCHecklerX]

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option). The reader insists in "improving performance" by running a program in my system tray for which I must remove the configuration myself (no option).

Huh?

Even if you are using Adobe's reader, you can easily kill all of the plugins. Then there are alternatives, like foxit reader on windows (love this one on my USB drive, and it's what I use on any windoze box I have to use), or you can use xpdf on *nix.

Re:I hate PDF

[Thaelon]

Another alternative is Foxit Reader

As always, not affiliated, just like it.

Re:I hate PDF

[julesh]

I'm still using acrobat 5. It opens in less than half a second, uses only 12 megabytes of disk space, doesn't have a notification area icon, and just seems to me to work better than more recent versions. I've yet to find a PDF file I wanted to read that doesn't work (although it has now reached the point that almost all pop up a message saying they might not work properly, yet they always do).

Or, as other posters suggest, use an entirely different program.

Re:I hate PDF

[SCHecklerX]

Is it a question of time before a lightweight, free software pdf reader captures the windows userbase as well?

foxit reader

Re:I hate PDF

[egamma]

"System Tray" is the end of the toolbar in Windows opposite the Start button, and typically contains the clock and various running programs. Your "bloated Operating system", unless you are running a text-only OS, has an area of the screen that contains something similar--system clock at least.

You shouldn't criticize something just because you don't know what it is. Simply admit your ignorance, and we'll be happy to enlighten you.

Re:I hate PDF

[porkThreeWays]

Let me be the first to call bullshit. Adobe reader sucks, but old versions still run fine on XP, and Foxit reader reads pdf's super fast and is lightweight http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Besides that, I can think of at least 3 open source pdf readers off the top of my head. Same thing with quicktime. There are a lot of other players that can play quicktime files. A standard isn't an implementation, and when multiple good implementations exist, you can't put down the standard because one of them suck.

Re:I hate PDF

[switch007]

Foxit Reader for Windows. Not bloated at all :)

Re:I hate PDF

[vertinox]

Preview works fine in OS X without downloading anything made by Adobe. Heck... I can make PDFs with OS X without even installing anything Adobe.

Re:I hate PDF

[ClosedSource]

What's this obsession with readers? Are all the documents we'll ever need already written? Or are these applications actually PDF-compatbile word processors?

Re:I hate PDF

[replicant108]

foxit reader

...free, but not Free unfortunately.

Re:I hate PDF

[DrSkwid]

> unless you are running a text-only OS, has an area of the screen that contains something similar--system clock at least.
> Simply admit your ignorance

after you, my GUI has no such bloat

here's my desktop http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/plan9/desktop.gif

where's this pointless waste of space you think I have ?

Re:I hate PDF

[75th Trombone]

Citation.

(Although to be fair, GP was quoting someone.)

Re:I hate PDF

[bhtooefr]

PDFCreator on Windows, built-in PDF-creation facilities in CUPS+Ghostscript on every other OS.

Re:I hate PDF

[BitterOak]

I like PDF.

There are free, open source PDF creators and readers out there. Actually, I like the Acrobat readers up to version 5.0. After that it became bloatware. What I like about PDF is that fonts are embedded right in the file, so you know that documents will look the same and print correctly on a Linux, Mac, or Windows environment. Images and text are stored compactly. Compare a typical PDF file size to the equivalent PostScript size. It is also a very convenient way of getting files to a printer. I have PDF writers installed everywhere, and if I am using a computer with no printer attached, I print to a PDF and copy it to my USB key drive. I can then print the file on any computer with a printer attached and it comes out looking correct. Most other file formats get screwed up if the other computer doesn't have the same fonts installed, or has a different version of the software used to decode the file. The P in PDF stands for portable, and in my experience, it is.

Re:I hate PDF

[TheRaven64]

Any application that can create PostScript output (i.e. anything that can print) can create PDFs. Some applications can also support the more advanced features of PDF (e.g. bookmarks containing a document outline and hyperlinks). I believe OpenOffice 2.x does. I use pdflatex to generate PDFs from semantic markup. It works very nicely on large documents; I'm currently using it for a book which is 260 pages and growing.

Re:I hate PDF

[daybot]

foxit reader

Indeed - Foxit is good. Apple's standard OSX PDF reader is good, too, but I suppose that doesn't answer your question :). The worst thing about the Adobe Reader is it wants 10+MB updates, sometimes with reboots, almost every time I come to read a PDF...

Re:I hate PDF

[Chuq]

My computer screen looks like that - when it is switched off.

Re:I hate PDF

[slazzy]

Try ordering tickets for something on ticket master. The PDF printout for the tickets don't open in anything but the newest Readers...

Re:I hate PDF

[DrSkwid]

Then I suggest you get your monitor fixed.

That is insane.

[McDutchie]

Government should not be in the business of making specific technical decisions that are inevitably subject to obsolescence. They should mandate general principles. Mandating the use of open, patent-free formats = good. Mandating the use of an open but specific format (not to mention a contrived mess such as ODF) = bad.

Re:That is insane.

[niiler]

I agree that patent-free formats is good. However, one must specify something or run the risk of having numerous open formats chosen by anyone who might have a say. While this may be good for "freedom", it is not so good when you actually have to get something done. As ODF is now an ISO/IEC 26300:2006 standard it seems to meet the requirements better than most options.

Will it become obsolete? Surely. But it will have better staying power than just about anything else I've seen to this date.

Re:That is insane.

[grencez]

They're only making decisions about the format used within government exchanges to make communication easier.

Re:That is insane.

[blowdart]

Well look at the recommendation; "promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage", yet they mandate two different file formats (and PDF does cover the same area mostly, except it's write once and never edit again without having to pay Adobe through the nose). Incredibly confused and stupid decision.

Re:That is insane.

[SigveK]

While they are mandating the use of an open, but specific format, the specified formats are not required to be used to the exclusion of any other format

FTFA:
"The information can be published in other formats in addition, as long as they are also published in one of the mandatory formats."

The original press release can be found at the Norwegian Government's website(Norwegian). Following the translated text above, it goes on to say "...one of the mandatory formats, e.g. MicroSoft's DOC format, provided the document is also available as ODF or PDF"

Re:That is insane.

[nine-times]

First, governments have always been in the position of regulating standards in business in various ways-- fair business practices, weights and measures, etc.

Second, this is the government setting a policy for how the government will keep documentation. Certainly, the government must run their own IT-- or don't you agree?

Re:That is insane.

[aztektum]

Even the blurb states it's only for government agencies. They aren't forcing it on Norwegian businesses. It's no different than some company saying "For internal communication, we only use Word, Outlook, Excel." Except in this case, the people don't need to spend a few hundred bucks to read government files that should be publicly available in the first place.

Re:That is insane.

[nine-times]

I'm not sure file formats necessarily become "obsolete". I would guess that ODF will be updated and refined, perhaps in a similar way to HTML. Is HTML 3 obsolete? You can still use it, and everyone will be able to read it, so I'm just not sure "obsolete" is the right word. However things turn out, there's no reason why ODF shouldn't remain readable and useful.

To me, "obsolete" means more than just that it's fallen out of mainstream usage. If I call something "obsolete", I usually mean that it actually cannot be used in practical situations anymore because its technology is too old to be used with modern methods. Therefore, open formats should never become obsolete unless computing changes so drastically that those file formats are unusable. Closed formats, on the other hand, can become obsolete when there aren't usable readers/writers anymore.

Re:That is insane.

[cheater512]

IMHO its better choosing one specific format rather than every man and his dog having a 'open' document format and noone being able to open anyone else's documents.

Try using ODF. You might like it.

Seems obvious

[AKAImBatman]

If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.'

The results of this investigation seem obvious to me. They'll find that there are no significant features of the OOXML format that aren't already replicated by ODF. They will also find that OOXML is needlessly complicated by support for odd bugs and backward compatibility issues with previous Microsoft Office releases. Finally, they will find that a dozen or so major software providers are actively supporting ODF while only Microsoft is actively promoting OOXML.

After the report is released, Microsoft money will step in and suppress it. The guys who wrote the report will be fired, and a new report will be written recommending OOXML as an "industry standard" with "longstanding vendor support". ODF supporters will be recast as small companies that could go belly up at any time. The whole standardization effort will collapse in the backlash, and nothing will get done.

On the bright side, they're keeping up the good fight. Without this pressure, nothing will ever change.

Re:Seems obvious

[hyfe]

After the report is released, Microsoft money will step in and suppress it. The guys who wrote the report will be fired, and a new report will be written recommending OOXML as an "industry standard" with "longstanding vendor support".

That's called corruption. You know, it doesn't have to be built into the system. Although It obviously can be, as the US is bloody rich.
.

Either way, I'm kinda curious how the money gets to be part of this. The elected represantatives are, well, elected, and obviously aren't allowed to take bribes. If any party accepted money with strings attached they would pretty much instantly lose their integrety and a large part of their voter-base. It really is amazing how much harder it to screw you over when there's alternatives.

Re:Seems obvious

[AKAImBatman]

That's called corruption.

That it is. And it amazes me how Microsoft gets away with it time and time again. All I can say is that they're masters of reasonable doubt. They really do threaten, cajole, and otherwise pressure others without making it seem like they're doing it, or at least seem like they're doing it illegally. (e.g. If you try and switch to free software, Microsoft will need to invoke the audit clause of the EULA to ensure that you're not using it as a cover for software piracy.)

I will say this: The Microsoft empire is crumbling, albeit ever-so slowly. Even if an attempt to be Microsoft-free doesn't succeed, it chips that much more out of Microsoft's armor. Eventually, damaging wounds will begin to appear. Microsoft won't disappear, but they may find themselves relegated to the semi-relevance of another three-letter computer giant.

Re:Seems obvious

[starfishsystems]

Believe it or not, it turns out that not all governments are as corrupt as the United States federal administration. Some are more corrupt, some are less corrupt, and what principles of government in particular are up for sale depends on the government.

Even within the USA it's not all uniform among the states, take Massachusetts for example.

So, while it's fine to be cynical in a particular instance, it's not possible to extend your reasoning more generally from that position. In other words, there's hope. There really is.

Redundant copies?

[HostAdmin]

> Other formats may be used however, as long as documents with the same content are available at the same time in ODF or PDF.

I suppose this is to limit opposition from MS and crew, but it's a bad idea. How's going to audit every document to be sure they're in sync?

Make a choice and stick with it.

Re:Redundant copies?

[networkBoy]

Simple, only the ODF document can be authoritative. Any derivative document can not be considered authoritative by default as it is not the Gov't spec'd format.
-nB

Re:Redundant copies?

[AKAImBatman]

Think of PDFs as the final "compiled" product of ODFs. If you want to distribute the document in a non-editable, non-variable, and printable format that's accessible by all, PDFs are it. ODFs are more of the "source code" document used to produce the final PDF product. Thus the concerns about synchronization are handled by the method of pipelining the documents. All edits are made to the ODFs internally, then published to web under the PDF format.

Re:Redundant copies?

[jgrahn]

Simple, only the ODF document can be authoritative. Any derivative document can not be considered authoritative by default as it is not the Gov't spec'd format

.

Or, I could (if I worked for the Norwegian government) keep doing what I do: write my documents with emacs, typeset them with troff, and generate PDF.

Word processors are evil, no matter what format they keep their files in.

Re:Redundant copies?

[networkBoy]

Canon for a fly eh?
what you are describing is electronic typesetting, not word processing, each has a purpose, and is not suitable for the other. To insist otherwise is being intentionally obtuse.
-nB

Re:Redundant copies?

[ajs318]

I've started using kate for a book I'm writing. And it really is better than a word processor. I have my list of independent documents -- roughly corresponding to chapters -- in the left-hand pane, and the chapter I'm working on in the right-hand pane. I can flick between chapters -- handy if I need to move a paragraph -- without the need for endless scrolling. The simple monospaced font is not distracting. I know I needn't worry about what the text will look like once it's printed out; I can concentrate on the words, and deal with the letters later.

I'm sure this behaviour was really meant for complex programming projects where you have several source files and it's necessary to be able to flick between them ..... but it's good for the other thing, too!

Hmm.

[u-bend]

I read stuff like this and it makes me wonder if this isn't going a little too far. No wait, don't mod me a troll. I love OSS. I use it all the time. But, being required to use it if you're a govt. employee? Weird. I'm no friend of closed formats, and I recognize MS is really bad for innovation, and has a really damaging business practice, but I think that this type of forced adoption is strange too. It can be likened (a bit) to countrywide smoking bans. In a country like Ireland, where they have socialized medicine, and the citizens and government are literally paying for lung cancer treatment, I guess I can see banning smoking in all pubs. Here though? There's nothing I hate more than having a good meal ruined by someone's smoke, but I'm big enough a boy to either deal with it, or choose to give my money to a restaurant that doesn't permit smoking--in any case, I don't think it's right for the city/state governments to tell restaurant and bar owners that they can't allow smoking. Anyway, it seems (slightly) like that with ODF forced adoption.

Re:Hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't think it's right for the city/state governments to tell restaurant and bar owners that they can't allow smoking

But it's all right for the restaurant and bar owners to make their employees breathe that smoke eight hours a day in order to make a living? There is no choice for these folks. It may be secondhand smoke, but it's enough exposure that it may as well be chain-smoking. Just because it's recreational doesn't make it a right when it impinges directly on others.

And BTW, we do all pay for the treatment eventually.

Re:Hmm.

[Constantine XVI]

ODF is more of a language than a program. It's like saying you need to speak Klingon (or other lang.) if you want to do business with me. There's nothing stopping you from learning Klingon, or speaking English as well, but you must know Klingon.
If Microsoft wants Office to be used in Norway, all they have to do is implement ODF (which is a open standard)

Re:Hmm.

[Volante3192]

But, being required to use it if you're a govt. employee? Weird.

Not really. It's simply policy. Governments have hundreds of policies that need to be followed, this is just another one. The reason it gets coverage is of what it means. It wouldn't do to have individual departments, or worse, individual people, decide what file format to use.

It's like a business. A business will dictate the use of one format in order to streamline operations; it wouldn't make sense to have one branch use Word while another used WordPerfect and so on.

Forced adoption is simply just keeping consistancy.

Re:Hmm.

[u-bend]

Oh, I don't know. You're right and you're wrong I guess. On the one hand, they could choose to go work somewhere else. If they want to stay in the food service industry, choose a restaurant without smoking. On the other, those restaurants may be few and far between. But I think they're getting more popular. I guess it's one thing I'd like consumers to decide. Helps keep up the fragile illusion of freedom of choice :)

Re:Hmm.

[u-bend]

I guess that makes sense. No difference than requiring a certain web browser or something. In that case, better for it to be an open format than a closed one....

Re:Hmm.

[wizkid]

Another reason governments are doing this is because they have historical requirements to be able to retrieve the documents for a long period of time. Try calling up a word document from the early 80's. It probably won't come up, unless you build an old computer with a old os and and old old version of word.

Re:Hmm.

[jaavaaguru]

I'd say it's more like requiring websites to be available in HTML and CSS rather than some proprietary format.

ODF is an open standard, as is HTML. You can read about how to parse/interpret it on the Internet, and anyone with the time and know-how can write a program that reads/writes it.

Hopefully more office applications will start supporting ODF, just as all web browsers support HTML.

Re:Hmm.

[thehunger]

You need to RTFA. There is no mandate to use open source software, only that government-produced documents are stored in an open format, ODF. There is nothing that prevents you from using commercial software here.

Re:Hmm.

[Haeleth]

I love OSS. I use it all the time.

What does OSS have to do with anything? We're talking about open formats, not open source software. You can produce an ODF file in Microsoft Word if you have the right plugin.

But, being required to use it if you're a govt. employee? Weird.

No weirder than the previous situation, to whit, being required to use Microsoft Office formats if you're a govt. employee.

In fact, neither situation is inherently weird. There is nothing weird about a large organisation, be it government or industry, standardising on a single document format. They all do it. They all HAVE to do it, because failing to standardise means wasting vast sums of money on needless interoperability problems, and they are accountable to shareholders/taxpayers who will hardly be pleased to know that money is being wasted. The only weird thing is when they standardise on a format that is controlled by a single company on the other side of the world.

in any case, I don't think it's right for the city/state governments to tell restaurant and bar owners that they can't allow smoking.

This isn't the city/state governments telling restaurant and bar owners that they can't allow smoking - this is the city/state governments announcing that city/state government employees will no longer be allowed to walk out of their offices and blow smoke into the face of passing citizens. Sorry, I just don't see any problem with that.

Re:Hmm.

[JohnBailey]

Who is being forced? The government in these countries have stated that they will be using an open format which anybody can support. Including Microsoft. Not that they will be requiring everyone to use it. No different to Amazon stating that they would be adopting ODF or any other format, but not requiring any of it's customers to switch too. It just means that anybody can read a government created file in a format that doesn't require the use of a specific application.

Nothing wrong with breaking a lock in. As it stands, virtually every business uses MS Office of some version. Why? because the bulk of their documents are in Office formats, and manually converting them to a different format is expensive and time consuming, as is switching to a different suite. Their alternatives are few or none. With ODF, they can still use the exact same software, but are required to save as ODF But so can every other Office suite. Result, zero retraining and zero lock in. If there is competition for any market, then all the competitors need to improve the product or face going out of business. Not just throw more and more vaguely useful features at it every few years. Diversity is good.

And on the smoking issue, I agree with the bans in public enclosed places, and I'm a smoker. I don't think I have any right to inflict my addiction on anybody else, and have been known to not smoke in my home out of courtesy to my guests.

Re:Hmm.

[starfishsystems]

But governments are responsible for managing public records and making them available to the public. This responsibility cannot be properly exercised through the use of proprietary document formats, since these would unreasonably exclude a segment of the public, and potentially excludes the government itself.

By definition, proprietary document formats are not in the public domain, are not standardized, and are subject to the whims of whatever proprietary software supports them on a given day. No responsible society wants its public institutions held hostage in this way.

Re:Hmm.

[Hatta]

And on the smoking issue, I agree with the bans in public enclosed places, and I'm a smoker. I don't think I have any right to inflict my addiction on anybody else, and have been known to not smoke in my home out of courtesy to my guests.

Just remember that restaurants and bars are privately owned establishments, not public spaces. As a non-smoker, I prefer to go to bars that allow smoking. People enjoying their freedom are happier and more fun to be around. If you don't want to be there, don't go.

Re:Hmm.

[vertinox]

But it's all right for the restaurant and bar owners to make their employees breathe that smoke eight hours a day in order to make a living?

But it's all right for oil companies to put their employees on highly dangerous oil rigs, or fishing companies put their men out in highly dangerous and freezing cold seas? Or the US military puts its men in harms way?

The professions I mentioned usually involve more deaths than a waitress working in a smokey bar and are paid as such... One could say you know the dangers when you take the job, so if you aren't up to it... Then don't take the job.

Of course there are plenty of highly dangerous situations that were rectified such as coal mines and factory work.... But again... At some point you do have to take personally responsibility for your own health and your own job.

I have a hunch that one day my job will kill me through stress related health problems, but it is primarily my fault for not finding another line of work.

And yes... There is plenty of other work than working as a waitress... Work at a grocery store, retail, warehouse, or factory. Most of the people that I know work at restaurants and bars smoked themselves anyways.

And keep in mind I don't smoke, but I feel that is a personal choice and responsibility of the end user.

Re:Hmm.

[donstenk72]

I think you miss the big point: a government might want to have access to its documentation in, say, 20 years without being tied to a single vendor. At the same time, requiring the citizens and contractors to submit government documents in a closed format controlled by a US corporation is also slightly weird. Not to mention most people think you have to pay 300+ euro for it...

Re:Hmm.

[supergnom]

Well, as a Norwegian, I think this is magnificent. They don't say anything about moving the government to OpenOffice or anything, but they will demand that communication to/from the government can be done without proprietary software. So *I* can run OpenOffice, or KOffice, or MS Office. So can they. There is no anti-MS about this, it's about not pressuring MS products on citizens, it's about allowing us to run what we want.

First Linus, then Pirate Bay and now this?

[rolfwind]

Sounds like the Scandinavian countries are too out-of-line. I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't petitioned the U.S. government to nuke them or at least go on a bombing campaign against these shameless eco(nomy)-terrorists.

Re:First Linus, then Pirate Bay and now this?

[hyfe]

Sounds like the Scandinavian countries are too out-of-line.

Well, as a Norwegian, I can honestly say that this is scaring the shit out-of-me. The US has a long history of getting "back" at countries by confusing different issues. Between us recognizing the rightfully elected Palestine government, our lack of enthusiasm for invading Iraq and this, we're fast getting on the shit-list.
.

Now, we have an on-going border dispute with Russia over the Barentsea and Svalbard, and without US support we're pretty much screwed.

Re:First Linus, then Pirate Bay and now this?

[magi]

Sounds like the Scandinavian countries are too out-of-line. I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't petitioned the U.S. government to nuke them or at least go on a bombing campaign against these shameless eco(nomy)-terrorists.

Today in other news, US president (the Bush guy) refused a meeting with Finnish president (Tarja Halonen) while she visits the US this week.

Think railway guages

[Silver Sloth]

Exactly the same argument could have been made for railway guages, and yes, here in the UK we curse the decision to use 4'8.5" (I think, I'm sure someone will correct me) instead of Brunell's 6' but at least rolling stock can run on most tracks in the country.

Re:Think railway guages

[miketheanimal]

IIRC 4'8.75"

Re:Think railway guages

[ajs318]

It's 1435. Brunel's preferred gauge was 2140; almost, but not exactly, exactly 1.5 times as large.

What about Okular?

[orzetto]

I like KPDF as well and that's my default viewer, but look at what is coming: Okular promises to be, if not an Acroread killer, at least a very serious contender. Note that this is KDE4 stuff (ergo Qt4, ergo it may easily be on Windows machines by year's end!).

Re:What about Okular?

[Coryoth]

I see it has annotations -- that's definitely a plus. Evince was in theory going to get annotations from the Summer of Code, but we'll have to see if that eventuates. PDF annotations are one of those horribly underused things because so few tools actually decently support them (Preview on MacOS X does, but I can't think of any other simple readily available readers that do).

Re:What about Okular?

[walter_f]

(ergo Qt4, ergo it may easily be on Windows machines by year's end!).

Who will still care about Windows, by year's end?

Re:What about Okular?

[TheRaven64]

Preview on OS X half-heartedly supports annotations. You can view the post-it style annotations with it, but not add them. You can add coloured text boxes and basic shapes, but as soon as you save these are flattened and become uneditable. It's a shame, because the underlying API is much richer, and could be used to write a decent PDF reader quite easily.

And during the next elections...

[khasim]

The opposition parties will release evidence that an outside company BOUGHT those politicians and that their decision was made purely because of Microsoft's money.

They'll then run on a platform of hiring their programmers to work on their software for their country.

Eventually, Open Standards will win. If for no other reason than it is CHEAPER in the long run and the money goes back into their economy instead of to Redmond, WA, USA.

Re:And during the next elections...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Yeah... You have no idea how envious Norwegians get of people who make more than themselves, especially if it is not deserved. Not long ago there was a huge uproar over one of the politicians getting a personal trainer covered by her party. And socialism here isn't a fringe group, they pretty much _are_ the government. It's only the shade that differs.

Also note that we have a history of implementing pretty radical IT related legislature, like the data protection laws which puts great restrictions on what companies can keep of (especially unrelated) information, privacy, requirements on how studies are performed, notification when data is accessed, etc.

Re:And during the next elections...

[quacking duck]

The opposition parties will release evidence that an outside company BOUGHT those politicians and that their decision was made purely because of Microsoft's money.

Fat chance. Microsoft learned from the mistakes of their US antitrust trial.

They'll try and buy ALL the major political parties at the same time, not just the ones currently in power.

Re:And during the next elections...

[Dionysus]

Yeah... You have no idea how envious Norwegians get of people who make more than themselves, especially if it is not deserved.

Eh, they would be envious even if it was deserved. Law of Jante, anyone?

Re:And during the next elections...

[Kjella]

Yeah... You have no idea how envious Norwegians get of people who make more than themselves, especially if it is not deserved. Not long ago there was a huge uproar over one of the politicians getting a personal trainer covered by her party. And socialism here isn't a fringe group, they pretty much _are_ the government. It's only the shade that differs.

Amen. Let me try to draw a picture of the Norwegian political landscape, on a socialist / capitalist axis:

• Socialist left
  
• Labour party
  
  • Centre party
    
  • Christian party
    
  • Liberal party
    
    • Conservative party
      
    • Progress party

Our country is being run by a coalition of the two leftmost and one small central party. Now, you're probably wondering where the US parties are. Well, they're roughly a foot to the right of your screen.

And how long will they be maintained?

[khasim]

So when the Open Standard copy becomes authoritative, how long do you believe someone will spend the time and effort keeping those "redundant copies" in sync?

Not very long. This is the old "path of least resistance". And it works.

Finland ain't Scandinavia

[orzetto]

Scandinavia = Denmark+Sweden+Norway. Scandinavia+Iceland+Finland = Nordic countries.

That's because all Scandinavian languages are mutually intelligible, and even though Icelandic is strictly speaking Scandinavian it is also very different from the other four (yes, four: Norwegian comes in two flavours, Norwegian and New-Norwegian. Norwegians, you can start flaming now.). Finnish is a completely unrelated language altogether.

(However, Linus is a Swedish-speaking Finn. Not sure whether that counts for Terra Scania.

Re:Finland ain't Scandinavia

[Coryoth]

Finnish is a completely unrelated language altogether. Finnish is from the Finno-Ugric language group which includes Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, and a smattering of groups in Russia. It is truly a bizarre language (in that it is very different from Indo-European languages -- which includes pretty much all the other European languages). I'm trying to learn a little Finnish, and to be honest my knowledge of Japanese is far more helpful as background than my knowledge of English and other European languages. It really is the odd language out, and not easy to learn for a speaker of Indo-European languages.

Re:Finland ain't Scandinavia

[zokum]

Norwegian doesn't come in two variants you dolt. There's a multitude of dialects that vary a lot and two written forms based on these. One is bokmål and the other is nynorsk. Bokmål, literally, book-language, is mostly based on danish, while nynorsk is closer to the original old norse language. From a linguistic point, nynorsk is the natural successor of old norse while bokmål is a norwegianized danish. Very few people actually speak like the forms are written, most speak some sort of dialect where a lot of the 'correct' grammar orally is not correct if written.

Re:Finland ain't Scandinavia

[KokorHekkus]

Thank you for informing fellow slashdotters about the bizarrness of the Finnish languge. Part of it is because it's pretty much an agglutinative language (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutination). Some examples from that wikipedia page:

For example, the Finnish word talossanikin means "in my house, too". Derivation can also be quite complex. For example, Finnish epäjärjestelmällisyys has the root järki "logos", and consists of negative-"logos"-causative-frequentative-nominaliz er-adessive-"related to"-"property", and means "the property of being unsystematic", "unsystematicalness". The word has lots of stem changes, so Finnish is not the best example for an agglutinative language.

So even if it has agglutination it compounds things by stem changes as well. Thanks to the agglutinative property it has 15 (yes fifteen) noun cases... language freaks can study them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_language_noun _cases

Re:Finland ain't Scandinavia

[naapo]

Actually, "epäjärjestelmällisyys" is quite an easy example. You could continue it and end, for example, in a form "epäjärjestelmällisyydentelemättömyyksissänsäkään" , which would be a fully correct single word in Finnish. It means literally "not even under the influence of his often repeating habit of being unsystematic". Of course, we Finns don't use words like that, because such words would be difficult to understand even for the native speakers.

Re:Finland ain't Scandinavia

[asninn]

Actually, Finnish isn't bizarre at all; Indo-European languages like English are. ;) It's all a matter of perspective.

Yes nuke us now!

[anss123]

We Norwegians love to get attention, and we welcome any nukes with open arms. That won't only put us in the news, but also put us in the history books! Go for it! Our current plan of becoming the best nation to live in isn't working, apparently historians doesn't care about statistical jiggery :>(

Not Getting Excited

[Nom du Keyboard]

I keep hearing that some large company, county, state, or country is moving closer to ODF and (fill in FOSS of your choice), but it doesn't actually happen. Microsoft swoops in, independent thinking I.T. director is fired, reassigned, or re-educated, and nothing big happens. Microsoft may be paying some of these entities to continue using their software, rather than the other way around, to keep up appearances, but it still doesn't happen.

Give me a story where 50,000+ desktops have actually thrown Microsoft out, and kept them out, and then we may have a news story. Until then, stop wasting the bandwidth!

Re:Not Getting Excited

[marcosdumay]

Brazilian governemnt is changing to FOSS. A few thousand (sometimes even hundreds) machines at a time, so there is no story about 50K+ machies. But it's doing it for the biggest part of a decade now, and not going back.

Not really

[Per Abrahamsen]

The government, like any large organization, has a good reason to standardize on two things:

1) The format(s) used for exchanging documents between various government department, and
2) The format(s) used for exchanging documents with external users.

The first reason is important for the smooth function of the government (or for any other large, multi-branch organization), and the second reason makes it much simpler for citizens and other entities, so they won't have to have a zillion different pieces of software for communicating with the government.

You can argue that it could leave it up to the individual department what formats to use internally, but for practical reasons the internal and external formats will tend to be the same.

Is Norway accepting immigrants ?

[unity100]

Or sweden ? because it seems that those would be the best places for geeks/internet people to live in. pirate party is enough by itself.

Re:Is Norway accepting immigrants ?

[Dionysus]

Only if you hijack a plane. or a convicted terrorist who threatens the host country with terrorism

Re:Is Norway accepting immigrants ?

[unity100]

sweden ?

Re:Is Norway accepting immigrants ?

[gnud]

Yeah, it's kinda easy if you're white and speak english. If you're not and you don't, you have to learn norwegian and stuff. Check the job postings at opera.com :D

A good PDF viewer I recently found

[malsdavis]

Sumatra PDF is a good lightweight (under 1mb) freeware PDF viewer for Windows.

It opens PDF files extremely quickly (usually in less than a second on my rather average computer, compared to an average of almost 10 secs with Adobe Reader) and doesn't try to takeover you computer and run your life etc. I've also yet to find a PDF which doesn't display correctly with it.

Website: http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

Re:A good PDF viewer I recently found

[malsdavis]

Oh yeah, forgot the most important part: Unlike almost all other Windows PDF viewers It's open source.

So why not just LaTeX?

[280Z28]

Maybe they're avoiding it and looking for something that's been around longer and/or less buggy? Or maybe they like ODF because it has free tools for editing it?

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

[seandiggity]

ODF is an ISO standard, which is a big selling point (as it should be). Some also think it's a prime candidate as the successor to HTML.

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

[808140]

Although I use LaTeX myself for most of my document production needs, asking government employees to use LaTeX to produce documents is probably a little bit unrealistic, no matter what you or I might think about the ease of document production using a TeX-based system. Publishers and professionals will continue to use tools like LaTeX, because in those sectors there are professionals who handle layout and expecting them to be able to use powerful but occasionally cryptic software is not at all unreasonable (authors rarely ever make decisions on how to layout the text of a book they've written). But here, we're talking about people that aren't layout professionals and who are used to WYSIWYG tools, for whom LaTeX would present an unreasonable learning curve.

LaTeX and TeX look great and are arguably still better than most of their direct competitors, and certainly produce documents that look vastly superior to those produced by WYSIWYG programs (as Knuth quipped, "What you see is all you get"). But the government is more concerned about content and the ease of producing it than how it looks. They also probably aren't typesetting complex mathematical formulae, which has historically been TeX's great strength.

And before anyone says as much, yes, I have heard of LyX -- but if you think you're getting all of TeX's power using a TeX editor like that, you'd be wrong. Plus, at that point, how is TeX superior to ODF? You may not realize this, but TeX (like PostScript) is a Turing complete language, complete with branches and loops, and there's no way that any editor, no matter how feature rich, could duplicate that level of complexity, for the same reason that there are no "WYSIWYG" tools for creating applications that duplicate all the functionality of C, C++, Java, C#, whatever.

You may think, "that's ok, let's just support a subset!" Not a bad idea (that is, in fact, what PDF does -- it implements a subset of PostScript that is not anywhere near as complex). But then you really have to make it a subset and only a subset, otherwise I might decide to edit the LaTeX code you wrote with your word-processor by hand and unknowingly create a beautiful document that no one can edit using WYSIWYG tools, because I strayed outside of the supported subset of the language.

Plus, people these days are gravitating towards XML-based formats, and for good reason: XML is easy to parse, standard, and ubiquitous. Using a non-XML based standard like some TeX-subset means having a completely different parser internally. XML is also structured as a tree, which makes dynamic content generation easy, whereas TeX, which was designed to be much more flexible, eschews such restrictions (to our great annoyance, as we cannot support all its exotic features for the reasons outlined above anyway).

Every time this sort of discussion comes up, someone invariably says "What about TeX?" Hopefully I've shed some light on why that's not really workable or ideal.

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

[cortana]

latex2html? ;)

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

[hankwang]

You may not realize this, but TeX (like PostScript) is a Turing complete language, complete with branches and loops

Unfortunately, TeX's Turing-completeness is implemented as a macro-expansion language. I use LaTeX for everything that's more than one page, and it is nice that I can still handle 15-year-old documents (except for the images which were tied to the emTeX printer drivers...), but it really sucks to change the layout because it is all in an almost-unstructured mess of macro expansions. Variable scoping rules are weird, you're restricted to max 255 counter variables, it can't do true floating-point arithmetic, and so on. In practice, you're dependent on packages written by TeX gurus, that often don't cooperate with each other.

It's time for a successor to (La)TeX. It's great what TeX can do given that it was originally designed to run on 1982-era hardware, but now we could use something that has less obscure internals so that mere mortals can extend its functionality. And the successor could have things like native unicode support, elegant interfacing with type-1 and truetype fonts, left-to-right and up-down scripts, and so on.

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

[asninn]

LaTeX3 is being developed actively. I don't really know anything about it, and I don't know if it gets rid of (La)TeX's quirks, but... one can hope, and it might be worth looking into.

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

[hankwang]

LaTeX3 is being developed actively.

LaTeX (including version 3) is a macro package that runs on top of the TeX engine. It provides a more consistent interface that hides the internals, but it still has to deal with, for example, the archaic way fonts are organized.

Re:Microsoft will have no problem supporting ODF

[KokorHekkus]

...I wonder why government documents need such a complex standard? On the server side, the data will be anyway stored in a relational database. So what is wrong with plain HTML on client side (and some trivial spreadsheet format when needed)? It's not like government forms are a beauty of design art?

Because government forms are just a small subset of government documents. Think of all documents going between, out from and into government agencies. Every system they buy will demand that the documentation be delivered in ODF, all reports commissioned by or issued by the government will be ODF etc.

Plain html just isn't good enough for real documents with typsetting-like information - just see how different browsers renders the same page.

MS Patent Troll Biz Lurks Under ODF-OOXML Merger

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft appears to be making moves towards turning a profit whether people accept their software or not. They can try to profit from Free and Open Source Software by ensuring that it must implement "patented" technology in OOXML. Just look at their latest insinuations regarding FOSS and Microsoft "patents" -- OpenOffice.org (which supports ODF) is in that list and it doesn't even have OOXML support!

If ODF is ever merged with OOXML then Microsoft will try to force free software developers to turn the same tricks Novell has. Or perhaps it will go after users in a RIAA-like rampage. This is why ODF should be protected from Microsoft's influence and OOXML (or any new standard Microsoft participates in) should probably remain untouched for at least 20 years.

Oblig. Monty Python

[owlnation]

Does this mean that closed formats are now pining for the fjords?

Except when it is

[Per Abrahamsen]

Scandinavia is often used as a synonym for the Nordic countries in an English language context.

Technical comparison

[seandiggity]

A white paper based on a technical comparison between the ODF and OOXML formats

...the OOXML "standard" is terrible from a technical point-of-view, even if you forget about Microsoft's motivation behind it.

Re:Technical comparison

[seandiggity]

Please at least attempt to approach the claims made in the article. There are glaring technical problems with OOXML, and the comparisons made prove the point very well. Just one example is the "treat 1900 as a leap year" built-in "bug".

Re:Microsoft will have no problem supporting ODF

[iamacat]

Because

a) Governments were created in 80s, when computer word processors became available
b) Governments today produce fundamentally different documents than 100 years ago

or

c) Quality of documentation shipped with products keeps increasing and really need such a complex format to express
?

Just because someone wants to play with a complex layout doesn't mean they need it to do their job. For private sector, sure let the market decide. But for a government I want all the e-paperwork to be expressed in a simplest possible format that everyone can write tools for to process and analyze.

Re:Microsoft will have no problem supporting ODF

[pembo13]

I would like to see your evidence for this non intuitive conclusion that you have come to at the beginning of your post.

Re:Microsoft will have no problem supporting ODF

[Larry Lightbulb]

On the server side, the data will be anyway stored in a relational database. I don't see where this is mentioned in the summary or the article.

Re:Microsoft will have no problem supporting ODF

[KokorHekkus]

b) Governments today produce fundamentally different documents than 100 years ag

or

or c) Quality of documentation shipped with products keeps increasing and really need such a complex format to express

Government agencies, just like all other organisations, do produce fundamentally different documents compared with even relativly close historical times.

Just because someone wants to play with a complex layout doesn't mean they need it to do their job...

It's more a question of predictable layout than one about complex layout. And one thing you can get a handle on with a proper document format is people playing around with the layout. Documents in any sufficently large organisation, commercial or not, needs to be standardized for structure. If you have templates it's easier to enforce that. Of course could argue that you can add meta information requirements to any html on the side, so to speak. But then you start getting an ad hoc structure with each major user because there is no standard for what to do. So you end up with a somewhat easier to parse structure but that requires intimate knowledge about the organisation using the application instead of the application itself - the document format. Of course that can be considered a good thing - if you want job security.

XML serialization

[SgtChaireBourne]

Well, seeing as how MS has (in the US) a software patent on XML serialization, it's any XML-based format that infringes. Even OpenDocument (ODF's) main contender, China's UOF falls foul of that one.

Basically, MS and its minions have been going through old comp sci text books, RFCs and established best practices and running a copy of everything found off to the USPTO for a rubberstamp. After that, any user caught using the softwarepatented item in a way outside of the official party line can get special treatment and bleed to death in court or knuckle under and assume the position.

The easy way out is to roll back to more sensible legislation like Europe currently has so that algorithms, formulas, software, and business methods, literature plots and so on are not eligible for patents. The hard way would be to fight each patent on a case by case basis, and there's not enough money in the world to be able to do that, not to mention the decades it would take.

No, it's wise

[watergeus]

They only say that if you do business with them, you should use PDF and/or ODF.
You can use different formats for your own business. They just try to use public funds in the most economical way. With that the public (the Norwegians) are served as best as possible.

Pragmatic

[Citizen of Earth]

Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.'

Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of FORTRAN by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the C and FORTRAN starting-array-subscript issue, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.' Norway concludes, 'the only solution is to start array subscripts from 0.5.'

Metric is infact superior!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Well - if you consider that French and English offer the same functionality, your analogy does not hold water.

The metric system is far superior. 1 liter water = 1 kg. 1 tonne = 1000 kg. 1 g = 0.001 kg. 10 km = 10 000 meters = 10 000 000 mm.

Do something like that with your ass-backwards system, please!

Re:Metric is infact superior!

[Millenniumman]

Well - if you consider that French and English offer the same functionality, your analogy does not hold water. Um, Metric and English (units) also offer the same functionality. The English units are just a lot harder to work with.

French is much harder to work with than English, especially considering it is less widely spoken.

Re:Metric is infact superior!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

well - duh, yeah. but hey - how many ounces to a quart?

Re:Metric is infact superior!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Well - once you learn French well, it's just as easy as English.

But: Using English units will always be a difficult thing to do than using Metric units. But hey - whatever tickles your pickle, man!

Re:I hate PDF - try foxit reader

[neutrino38]

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

I actually UNISTALLED Acrobat reader from one of my laptop after having intalled this one. Perfect replacement so far and not bloated at all.

Think of the children!

[myowntrueself]

Won't someone please think of the children and protect them from the nasty Norwegian PDF files!

Re:What is the problem with OpenXML being a standa

[orkysoft]

Bullshit. Neither of those are reverse engineered. OpenOffice's binary format is just a zip file containing XML files, so there's not much to reverse engineer. ODF is similar, I believe.

MS' OOXML is hideously complicated, and has lots of things in it that demand bug-for-bug compatibility with lots of closed-source programs (e.g.: <display-like-MSWord-95> ... </...>). It'd be just as bad as if they'd just put the entire MSWord binary DOC file inside CDATA[[...]] brackets. So it's far less open than ODF.

Also, ODF isn't patented. That's kind of the whole point.

Re:What is the problem with OpenXML being a standa

[Basellife]

It is shame you did not bother to read the Sun document concerning it's patents and ODF. Here is the quote: "Sun irrevocably covenants that, subject solely to the reciprocity requirement described below, it will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 Specification, or of any subsequent version thereof ("OpenDocument Implementation") in which development Sun participates to the point of incurring an obligation, as defined by the rules of OASIS, to grant (or commit to grant) patent licenses or make equivalent non-assertion covenants. Notwithstanding the commitment above, Sun's covenant shall not apply and Sun makes no assurance, covenant or commitment not to assert or enforce any or all of its patent rights against any individual, corporation or other entity that asserts, threatens or seeks at any time to enforce its own or another party's U.S. or foreign patents or patent rights against any OpenDocument Implementation." I used reverse engineering in the sense that the format has been designed so that it can store any document produced by the programmes such as OpenOffice or Microsoft Office. I don't get your arguement that because you don't like the specification it is any less open. Once it is owned by a committee or a standards body then it is controlled by that body. No one seems to have complained that ECMA standardised Javascript. The question is why should one be a standard and not the other. Will having ODF as a standard be of real concern to anyone outside the public sector. Up to now it has not been important to anyone.

Immigrating to Norway

[Esteanil]

Short answer: No.
Norway hasn't accepted immigrants since early in the 70ies.

However, there is a quota of 5000 specialists per year. I'd guess most of the Slashdot readership would fall under this category, and the Norwegian IT market is in desperate need of more people (the hiring bonuses for IT people are getting ridiculous). This quota has to date never been filled. Apx. 1000 people come to Norway per year under it.

Google is among the companies looking for more employees in their norwegian department, and Trondheim is a rather nice city :-)

Norway has been ranked as the world's best place to live by the UN's Human Development report for the last 6 years running.
Pretty much every Norwegian you'll ever meet will speak English, as it's taught in school from the 4th to 11th grade and most of our TV shows are imported from the US and UK.

If you start working in Norway, you'll have at least 5 weeks paid vacation/year - it's the law. This is in addition to the 12 official holidays.
If you get ill, you have 100% coverage (full pay) from day 1 until day 365 of your illness, after that other rules apply and you may have to tighten your belt a little.

Other than that? Well. Our natural scenery will take your breath away, our taxes and prices will drive you a little bit crazy, and our beautiful girls will make sure you never want to leave again :-)

Want to work here? Send me your CV and I'll see what I can do.

Re:Immigrating to Norway

[Esteanil]

Oh, and CV = Curriculum Vitae = Résumé. I hear some of you USians don't know what CV means. :-)

Re:Immigrating to Norway

[unity100]

I am turkish, and i know what CV is, due to the unfortunately overboardly serious university education craze we have here. Despite the climate concerns frightens me (im a mediterranean, cold is not a concept that i am much used to) ill still send a contemporary resume.

Re:What is the problem with OpenXML being a standa

[orkysoft]

Alright, I'll grant you that I didn't read the legalese. But it seems that Sun promises not to sue you if you don't sue them -- something which is necessary in today's America with software patents.

I don't get your arguement that because you don't like the specification it is any less open.

It has nothing to do with liking or not liking it. If the proprietary-format-to-OOXML-converter just puts everything in those behave-exactly-like-MSWord-95 tags, then it is in fact closed, even though it looks open -- only MSWord 95 or someone with detailed knowledge of how it works knows how to display the document.

Another government making easier to read docs

[suitepotato]

in a language I still don't understand. While this presently has no upside for me, it might pan out in the future should they emigrate here and start making American government docs which have been getting oddly more comprehensible lately and we just can't have that.

Its all about money

[petermgreen]

theese governments are seeing a lot of money going to the US to buy copies of MS software. They can't just destroy the copyright because they know there would be serious reperations for doing so. OSS provides them with a way out of the MS license fees without breaking any treaties.

Afaict most low end office workers only use MS software for three reasons. One is because everyone else does and it smoothes document exchange to all do the same thing. The second is because its all they've ever used and all IT has ever installed. The third is internal systems that were built to rely on it. Yes office does have some nice features but hardly anyone uses most of them.

So yes there will be a cost to getting off MS. OOO is more bloated than older versions of office. There will be retraining costs and probablly some lost formatting as documents are converted and there will be costs in reengineering internal systems. However staying on MS is not exactly free either. They love to break compatibility subtuly to gently pressure people into upgrading and each upgrade has a non-trivial cost.

To: Steve Ballmer, Obligatory Star Wars Quote

[crhylove]

The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.