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."

Comments

Interoperability say it all

[UncleWilly]

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.

Re:of all countries... japan?

[wootest]

Which is why open standards would be of particular importance. I mean, right?

Re:For how long?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Small correction. The ooxml documentation takes a 747 all by itself. The freebies are ina seperate 747.

Re:Define "open"

[ScrewMaster]

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.

Re:Open Source and Growing Up Mormon

[Pecisk]

And this is relevant to this article because...?

Or you just wanted to start another flame war about how open source/open standards guys are zealots, etc. etc.

Guess what - even if you are neither, one of most advanced countries in the world using really open standards IS news, even for you.

Yes, maybe posting about every time when such things happens in local level - county, city, region - is a little bit silly (but even then I would like to know details), but this is different case.

p.s. Munich still goes "to the church", by the way (3thd year, and still going. Yes, they have mixed success, but they don't look back). So does lot of other organizations, cities, regions and countries.

PDF is not a closed document format

[CrankinOut]

PDF is a published, documented format. It is copyrighted, but usable royalty-free in any software. From the specification book
PDF Reference
third edition
Adobe Portable Document Format
Version 1.4

"Adobe gives anyone copyright permission, subject to the conditions stated below, to:

• Prepare files whose content conforms to the Portable Document Format
• Write drivers and applications that produce output represented in the Portable Document Format
• Write software that accepts input in the form of the Portable Document Format and displays, prints, or otherwise interprets the contents
• Copy Adobe's copyrighted list of data structures and operators, as well as the example code and PostScript language function definitions in the written specification, to the extent necessary to use the Portable Document Format for the purposes above

The conditions of such copyright permission are:

• Software that accepts input in the form of the Portable Document Format must respect the access permissions specified in that document. Accessing the document in ways not permitted by the document's access permissions is a violation of the document author's copyright.
• Anyone who uses the copyrighted list of data structures and operators, as stated above, must include an appropriate copyright notice.

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.

Re:Does anyone else find this sentence ironic?

[thethibs]

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.