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Japan To Adopt Open Software Standards
em8chel writes "Japan has adopted a policy under which government ministries and agencies will solicit bids from software vendors whose products support internationally recognized open standards. Japan thus becomes the first country in Asia to embrace open software standards (PDF), the OpenDocument Format Alliance says in a press release. ODF managing director Marino Marcich is quoted: 'By giving preference to open software formats such as ODF, it is saying that information should be competitively priced, innovative, and easily available to the widest range of people, now and in the future. We hail Japan for its diligence and vision.' The new guidelines are available (in Japanese) from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry."
The ODF alliance press release aside, interoperability is the last mile in lots of "IT Plans Gone Bad", as plot-point-two. Japan seems to make a lot of smart decisions. Guess I'm just a little jealous.
-jl
Given the behavior of Microsoft anywhere else that a move to ODF has been tried, I'm sure that somewhere near Redmond a 747 is being loaded with free software coupons, free educational locking computers, free bribes and ooxml documentation as we speak.
So what is the standard for 'international open standards'? Would such a standard permit OOXML, an undocumented proprietary format that Microsoft named "Open Office XML" in a deliberate (and typically malicious) attempt to muddy the waters for decision makers?
Stuff that appears in Japan shows up in the U.S. two years later. Yay!
This is a fine example of how regulated capitalism can be better for the consumer than Open Market capitalism. I hope the EU is next. And I hope they hurry :-)
-- Cheers!
How exactly is this story connected to the gnu project? I could only find their statement against proprietary standards (such as M$ Word). They are not the inventors of odf, though they of course support odf. But what makes them so special that they deserve to be tagged in this story, instead of sun for example?
I reported on a survey showing that the penetration of Linux in the public sector was virtually nil, and in addition two months ago office suites meant MS Office in both the private and public sectors.
Everytime I see a /. article "X Chooses Open Source", "Country Y Goes Linux", "Province B Going MS Free", I'm reminded of some of my Mormon friends.
Everytime some celebrity converted, they crowed about how their church was gaining ground and would encompass the world.
Everytime some new temple complex was found in Central or South America, they'd claim it was evidence of Nephite civilization.
Everytime there was a "gentile" event that paid homage to the Mormons, they go into theological orgasms.
The facts are: For every 4 converts, 3 stop going to church within a year. There still is no proof of Nephites. Yes, Mitt Romney is Mormon, but so is Harry Reid, and both just look like slimy used car salesmen.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
[quote]... open software standards (PDF)[/quote]
Last time I checked, PDF was not an acronym for "Open Software Standards"
of siryou.pdf. Appendix 1 seems to be a table of standards, it doesn't mention ODF. Appendix 2 lists a bunch of software, including Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. The last line of that table is about a system running a 1.6Ghz pentium which runs OpenOffice.org reasonably quickly I think. ODF is mentioned in passing on page 6 where there is some encouraging language about royalty free and RAND standards (not sure that is sufficient though, I seem to remember something about RAND preventing Open implementations.) I want to slap this on the desks of some Japanese executives tomorrow, but I want to be confident that it says what I think it says. Can someone reassure me?
PDF Reference
third edition
Adobe Portable Document Format
Version 1.4
"Adobe gives anyone copyright permission, subject to the conditions stated below, to:
The conditions of such copyright permission are:
This limited right to use the copyrighted list of data structures and operators does not include the right to copy this book, other copyrighted material from Adobe, or the software in any of Adobe's products that use the Portable Document Format, in whole or in part, nor does it include the right to use any Adobe patents, except as may be permitted by an official Adobe Patent Clarification Notice (see the Bibliography)."
Note: I see the irony of not being permitted "to copy this book...in part". However, as I am writing about the book, US Copyright law permits small quotes to be used and attributed.
PDF is an ISO Standard.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/standards.ht ml/
And here where thay are woring with ISO on PDF V1.7 and ISO 32000 http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/adobepdf.htm l/
PDF used as a native output format by Open Office. So far Abobe have not sued over this. Just the opposite, they are promoting PDF as an implementable standard.
If you go to here http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/top ic.html/ you will see that the specification is freely available as is a SDK.
Does this make Adobe sound like Microsoft and especially their attitude to ODF? I think not.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Adobe and think that in some areas their pricing and licensing policy s**ks but here, credit where credit is due.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
The PDF press release from the ODF Alliance is peppered with a lot of things like "open formats such as ODF ..." To me, that sounds like Japan has decided to encourage open formats, and the ODF Alliance is spinning it to be about them.
I don't know, as was asked by others around here, whether OOXML would qualify for the same treatment by Japan -- I suspect it would, though (as would other formats), therefore making this press release little more than a bunch of spin.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Not only that. In a high level conference on research collaboration between the EU and Japan this week, the words open source and standards were included in the draft. A few years ago I remember "open source" being dropped.. Times change and Microsoft is entirely to blame for its own shortcomings.
What's with the image of what looks like a hindu holy man with a trident?
Altogether off topic. This is about a major country adopting open *standards*. Nothing says they need to use Open Source Software, Linux, or ditch MS to do so. You're grasping at troll straws.
This is not really news. Japan is an active member of just about every international standards body there is. The Japanese government has always favored standards-based products and actively supported Japanese companies in establishing standards where there were none. It's all good for business and, in Japan, what's good for business is good for the country.
I'd say the ODF is easily pleased.
BTW, what would a "closed international standard" be?
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
.. and interoperability is an easy game to play. Web Services, XML, open document formats - all very possible in a closed source, embrace-and-extend model. There's a lot of things not to like about it, but reality is what we're all here to deal with.
To be honest, I find the spin that the ODF Alliance is putting on this just as pathetic and self-serving as Microsoft. Their main enemy, the Office Open XML format, is open too: documented, royalty-free, implemented in XML, maintained by an international body. So this announcement could also be made by Microsoft.
That's fine and all for church, but there are very compelling arguments (if not clear factual benefits) for changing to open standards. You're not locked into a specific application or version or vendor or toolkit or API. Middleware can be created for your data to work with proprietary applications if you so desire. You can even convert back. With proprietary software, it's a lot harder to "stop going to church" and you're pretty much stuck if your files are held hostage and you need to get work done.
Twinstiq, game news
this seems like a good idea, when will they land of the free embrace such a thing?
Hello, I would like to mention some points from the Japanese PDF.
First of all, Japan has some very strict new laws on how corporations must handle personal information of individuals to protect their privacy. Along with the changes in the Corporation Law recently, these laws mean that virtually all major corporations in Japan have been rewriting their articles of incorporation, employee manuals, IT department guidelines, and so on. It doesn't mean things are more secure, but it does mean they are supposed to be more secure. IIRC if your company handles the personal information on more than 500 people then you have to implement certain procedures. (Anyway I am not attempting to provide authoritative information here.)
There also have been a number of scandals (mainly at big banks) on customer information being leaked. So now all corporations' fundamental articles include words like "leakage" and "falsification" of information as things that must be prevented. Japanese companies usually have their fiscal year begin April 1 which means that just a couple weeks ago, most corporations had their general shareholders meetings (many on the same day, to avoid organized crime from interfering) where things like this got voted on (if they weren't the previous year). ODF and standards haven't been on the plate but maybe they will be next year with this announcement.
Okay, on to the PDF. The PDF includes definitions of many terms including "vendor lockin", "open standards", etc. ODF and XML are mentioned by name. It seems to be well written (though I have not read the whole thing). It would seem to exclude allowing Microsoft's horrible new format as an open format because it mentions in the vendor lockin definition the nonavailability of an API, or the limitation on ability to implement it due to licensing requirements. IANAL but it would seem that the government has the leeway to make sane judgements, even in the case of for example Microsoft taking over the standards process and making OOXML an international standard. That said, Japan is probably Microsoft's best or second best market.
The document also states clearly that open formats are to be preferred, and must be used to promote exchange of information between ministries. The word "saiyou" (adopt, use) is used in the statements that say software that adopts open standards is desirable. It is not clear that this forbids the software to also support closed formats, but the spirit of the document would seem to prefer fully open software/solutions so that data may not be saved in closed formats, as this would hamper free exchange of information and the ability to store/view the documents into perpetuity.
Here is a translation of section 4.2.3 on page 19. I, Matthew Rosin, hereby release this translated text to the world in the public domain but deny responsibility for any mistakes.
---
4.2.3. Policy related to giving priority to open standards
It is desirable for the government and public organizations to secure the mutual interoperability of information systems between administrative organizations and with related private sector and international organizations, in order to pursue efficient administration and to provide highly convenient service. To this end, it is necessary to procure software for which protocols, APIs, etc. that use interfaces that are compatible with open standards, to the extent to which implementation is possible.
The government and public organizations, in order to secure transparency related to policy, fulfill their responsibility for providing explanations, and realize expanded participation by the citizenry, software must be procured, to the extent to which implementation is possible, for which the formats of data and files are compatible with open standards, in order to guarantee for public documents the ease of access and ability to save and browse over the long term.
Mutual interconnection between related organizations, including governmental organs, and the free exchange of data among
You mean you don't need a specious govt run anti-trust trial to take down a monopoly the govt help create? I guess the lawyers had to get rich somehow...
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender