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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.
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.
Which is why open standards would be of particular importance. I mean, right?
...an undocumented proprietary format that Microsoft named "Open Office XML"... It's "Office Open XML".You would think that, after all this time, the PHBs usually put in charge of software purchasing would have realized that nothing from Microsoft is open. Good, bad ... that's the way it is.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Stuff that appears in Japan shows up in the U.S. two years later. Yay!
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.
I am not a Microsoft fan and I believe that we have a perfectly good standard office format (ODF) and don't need another.
But... when there are so many good reasons to oppose OOXML (eg it isn't open when part of the spec says "do it like Word 97" [I paraphrase], ignores other existing standards such as SVG and invents whole new languages) there is no reason to make up new criticisms. Apart from the specification not being open, I can understand that this XML-based format, originally designed for use in Microsoft Office, can be called Office Open XML.
Whilst on the subject of confusing names, remember that Open Office is actually a trademark owned by someone else entirely. The office suite used by most free software users is called OpenOffice.org.
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.
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.
There are 11 types of people in the world, those who know binaries and those who don't.
Apparently, you're one of those who don't.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
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.
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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
Eh, never heard that before. When I was living there they seemed to have twice as much Open Source stuff running then anywhere else.
I could go into almost any computer store and buy a pre-built computer running FreeBSD.