Dutch Government Adopts Open Source Software Initiative

christian.einfeldt writes "The Dutch government has set a target date of April 2008 for its agencies to start preferentially using open standards-based software. Organizations in the government will still be able to use proprietary software and formats ... but will have to justify it. A Microsoft Netherlands spokesman claims that Microsoft's Office productivity suite will still be used widely in the Dutch government until April, and that Microsoft Office will comply with the new Dutch rules once Microsoft's so-called "Open Office XML" standard is approved as an international ISO standard in February."

Comments

Re:I love it

[Tim C]

Now if only the Dutch could export this way of thinking across the North Sea to us non-mainland Europeans, we'd all be happy...

Assuming you mean the UK, you should perhaps have a read of the eGIF rules sometime. They're quite explicit - while proprietary software is not forbidden, open standards and formats are very strongly encouraged. Failing to comply with the rules can result in funding being pulled.

Now I don't know how vigorously the rules are enforced, but certainly the times that I've worked with various governmental bodies they have been very keen indeed on using open standards and software as far as possible. It's a pragmatic approach though - if a proprietary solution really is the best, all things considered, then that's what'll be used.

Re:Erm?

[DFJA]

I'm afraid you're wrong.

Sorry I missed off the humour tags here.

In all seriousness, this type of confusion is *exactly* what Microsoft intended when they wanted to call it this. Get people to inadvertently get it the wrong way round so that people think it's the same thing and so forth. Basically just another type of FUD.

Interview with the general manager of Microsoft NL

[MadJo]

In a recent Dutch Podcast ictroddels.nl Microsoft was complaining that this brief would hurt their business, and that it was unwise of the Dutch government to opt for the ODF, because MSOffice could not read it natively, and that they should also include OOXML in the brief.
In the same interview, Theo Rinsema, general manager of MS Netherlands also said that MS doesn't want to compete on Office formats.
He also mentioned that the .doc format was also open enough, because many open source solutions could read and write to that format.

Re:Open Standards != Open Source

[the_brobdingnagian]

Although the primary goal is the use of open standards for documents, they are working on promoting open source software.Last Wednesday I attended a meeting in Den Haag where this plan was discussed. The general attitude of the different political parties was very positive. Most questions where about details. This is going to happen, and I expect most of the government will be switched in between 2 and 5 years. Now open source: It will be used if the quality is equal to the current closed source alternative. All software written for the government will be the intellectual property of the gouvernment and the plan is to release it as open source. But this will probably be more difficult because of vendors using closed source components in the software. And for OOXML: I never heard OOXML in the meeting. They used ODF as example of open documents and did not seem to be happy with Microsoft.

Re:I love it

[Sczi]

Well, sure, there's a bit of that, but I have another theory aside from people thinking they "need" it. I especially hate it here at work, because I have Office 07 due to being in the nerd quarter, whereas everyone else is on 2000 or 2003.. So we have clients that will send us docx or xlsx files, and I have to convert them. Well a VAST majority of the time, and so far I would say 100% of the time, the docx's in particular could have been written in notepad, since they have basically no formatting. The xlsx files could have just as easily been created in any version back to lotus 123. Based on the corporate pant-load asshats that send us these files, my personal theory is that MS has somehow elevated their software to be a status symbol, especially the $400 versions. These too-rich dingleberries who send us .docx files are basically showing off and getting a little power trip off of making us convert their files. I've actually had smarmy corporate types giggle at me on the phone and say things like "can't afford to migrate the whole office to 07 yet, eh? yuk yuk".. these are people who are doing things for the wrong reason, of course. I just don't think there is yet a "right reason" to use docx or xlsx for 99% of business. Maybe we need a class action lawsuit that prescribes a remedy such that MS is required to install an option to choose the default format, and be able to set the format via group policy?

Re:Maybe they didn't want to be "Open Failures"

[civilizedINTENSITY]

First, it was "In May 2003 Munich's city council voted to switch its 14,000 desktop and notebook computers from Microsoft products to the Linux operating system and open-source desktop applications", not 2002. Next there was a pilot, then they delayed a year, but the mayor has said last yeat at the Systems IT trade show in Munich,"But we're very happy with the results so far. I'm no technology freak but even I must admit how easy it's been to migrate to the new software." By the end of the year, some 200 workstations close to Lord Mayor Christian Ude and a number of nearby organizational units will be running on a special LiMux client. If everything runs according to schedule, most of the approximately 14,000 PCs will be migrated to Open Source in the next two years.

Note that the delay began with debates over patent issues, and companies fighting for contracts (the pilot was based on SuSE but "the city finally chose Softcon and Gonicus to install open source software provided through the Debian GNU/Linux project.") There was certainly resistance to change, but the delays have been more political than technical in nature.