Slashdot Mirror
Norway Mandates Government Use of ODF and PDF
siDDis writes "Earlier this year Slashdot mentioned that Norway was moving towards mandatory use of ODF and PDF. Now it's official: the Norwegian government has mandated the use of open document formats from January 1st, 2009. There are three formats that have been mandated for all documentation between authorities, users and partners. HTML for all public information on the Web, PDF for all documents where layout needs to be preserved and ODF for all documents that the recipient is supposed to be able to edit. Documents may also be published in other formats, but they must always be available in either ODF or PDF."
When you really think about it, how stupid would it be if a large government agency even in the US sent out a "document meant for editing" in a microsoft office format. I mean seriously. If the IRS sent me a tax form as a .doc file I would call them up and tell em what I thought of that but probably wouldn't get through cuz it'd already be flooded with pissed off people. I mean, that's like requiring all US citizens to own a copy of Office. Same with Norway. Any country that doesn't choose a non-propietary format is crazy.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Hmmm... This may be a problem because my country of Garbagestan (which I have just formed by taking control of all the homes on my street) has made HTML, PDF, and ODF illegal under pain of a forced upgrade to Vista.
I think Norway would be better off using proprietary formats.
Not to karma whore or anything... but the least you think an editor would do is provide the bokmal translation. This proves it... Slashdot hates Norwegian people. Again, not to karma whore:
" enhver burde ha likeverdig adgang å offentligheten beskjed : Åpen standarder bli tvangsmessig innen regjeringen. " regjeringen har bestemte det alle beskjed opp på regjeringen websites burde være anvendelig i fri luft formatter HTML PDF eller ODF. Med dette bestemmelse tidene når offentligheten dokumenter der hvor bare anvendelig inne Microsoft's Ord - formatter kommer å slutt. 'Everybody burde ha likeverdig adgang å offentligheten beskjed. Fra 2009 det borger ville være i stand til valgte hvilke programvare å bruk for at få innpass å offentligheten beskjed. Det regjeringen bestemmelse ville likeledes gjøre bedre konkurransen imellom leverandør av kontor søknadene sier DEN - minister Heidi Praktfull Røys. " denne er avgjørelsen av regjeringen : HTML burde være det primære formatter for forlagsartikkel av offentligheten beskjed på Sykehuslege. PDF (1.4 eller nyere , eller PDF / EN ISO 19005-1) er tvangsmessig når du ønske å gjemme originalen layout av en dokumentet. ODF ISO IEC 26300) må av sted anvendt når utgiveren dokumenter det er mente å bli forandret etter dataoverfører eg. blankett det er å bli fylte inne av brukeren. "- Norge Ministerium av Regjeringen Administrasjon og Forbedring "
*Translated by hand.
I got a catholic block.
I honestly don't know the technical ends and outs of either format (I'm a physicist, not a CS... albeit one who had to fuss at his students this semester for turning in crap in .docx format after I told them plaintext), but why the choice of pdf over postscript for the "formatting preserved" format? My department seems to use them pretty interchangeably... and aren't there tons of tools that do nifty things to postscript? (ps2* and *2ps style things?)
Does it compress better or something?
A fourth format was also specified: Adobe Flash was mandated for all documents that need to include animated dancing silhouettes.
Could you use any chairs? Free same day air delivery!
Basically everyone under 40 in Scandinavia speaks good english. Better english than many Americans, in fact.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
But do they have senses of humor and are they able to understand when their culture isn't actually the point of the post, but instead just a detail in a parody of a very common practice on slashdot. I think so. Gotta a friend from Stavanger. He's an ok guy and pretty sharp, apparently sharper and a little more lighthearted than /. mods.
Spot on about speaking better english than Americans though. My first reply is proof positive.
I got a catholic block.
Just kidding, this is truly awesome. With any luck, this will improve the efficiency of document handling in the Norwegian government and help set off a domino effect. Unfortunately, I think it's likely that us poor Americans would be the last such domino to fall, given the unbelievable amount of data that would require conversion (much of it possibly by hand) and our government's overt support of big business (i.e. Microsoft).
But the idea of thomas.loc.gov all being in PDF... wow...
I will be curious to see what other nations pick this up and runs with it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
These applications do not feel snappy and crisp at all, though the code base is at least 10 years old.
I know it's a matter of time before ODF applications catch-up to Microsoft's offerings.
Your spare time [klerck.org]? The mobo blew Join GNAA X(GAY Duty to be a big kiil myself like flaws in the BSD say I'm packing development model the facts and
There are lots of articles and talk about it surfacing in one government after another. And in some, it seems to get watered down to meaninglessness or removed completely (no doubt after behind-the-scenes pressure and corruption). So I have tended to ignore a lot of it. But this one might be firm. Still, having to wait an entire year, will it stick? A year from now, will it really happen there? Has the domino effect started?
I'm not sure there are many documents that government send out that need editing, but if we suppose for a moment that there were some it is bizzare that they would select a single document format that only a minority of people use today.
The history of governments selecting single standards like this should have taught us all lessons that prevent us from doing this any more. x400, x500, TP0 & TP4 anybody?
I read somewhere about a policy in spain that made a lot more sense, basically one of the provincial governments there commit to sending your document back to you in whatever form you send it to them in.
Does anyone know how this standard affects files that are not text? I mean things like posters, graphic images, audio, video, databases, complex spreadsheets, slideshows, etc. Basically, everything outside of Word?
For example, many government employees use Excel and are using features not supported by ODF. What happens when they need to send those files to others to edit?
-David
It just seems like mandating a specific and standard set of document formats in a country undermines freedom of speech. If you look at it a certain way, the format itself can be thought of as part of the expressiveness of the content. It -is- the content, so really, what Norway is saying is that only certain tools and the mindset behind those tools is appropriate. If the government were smallish relative to the society, such standardization would not be so bad, but given that European governments tend to be largish affairs, it seems that this sort of regulation will only serve to undermine software and content in the long term.
This is my sig.
The circular. I think this is missing some details that were recommended (like don't encrypt your postscript) that may appear elsewhere.
Bruce Perens.
Postscript is a programming language; that's why you can have stack errors. PDF is purely declarative.
Although Norway itself, a relatively progressive country in IT matters (both Trolltech and Opera originated there) is fairly insigificant in the big scheme of things, this move coupled with other national governments moving in similar directions, might very well be enough to get the ball rolling. If Norwegian government IT sectors report significant savings and increased efficiency, then even more governments will likely follow. It's a fact of life that smaller countries take a good look at other small countries to compare efficiencies and practices.
A good example would be the Finnish school system, which has consistently scored very highly in the PISA educational ratings. That had a major influence on other European countries, such as Germany, which scored much lower, and Switzerland, making them look at how they could improve their own educational systems. It's the same thing with IT. You could very well see other European countries making similar decisions in the future.
The biggest hurdle will of course be Microsoft, which will do anything it can to stop acceptance of ODF and push in OOXML through the door. They will almost certainly try to get their big business partners to bully local governments into accepting OOXML in place of ODF.
According to the Norwegian Government's Reference Catalogue for IT Standards in Government Sector OOXML is currently "under observation". If OOXML is approved as an ISO standard, it could imply that government bodies in Norway will be able to choose between OOXML and ODF for editable documents.
Press release, published 21.12.2007
Equal access to public information for all citizens in Norway
Open document standards to be obligatory for state information
The Norwegian Government has decided that all information on state-operated web sites should be accessible in the open document formats HTML, PDF or ODF. This means an end to the time when public documents are published in closed formats only.
- Everybody should have equal access to public information. From 2009 on, Norwegian citizens will be able to freely choose which software to use to get access to information from public offices. More competition between suppliers of office programs will be another effect of the government's decision, Minister of Government Administration and Reform Heidi Grande Røys says.
The Government's decision is as follows:
* HTML will be the primary format for publishing public information on the Internet.
* PDF (PDF 1.4 and later or PDF/A ISO 19005-1) is obligatory when there is a wish to keep a document's original appearance.
* ODF (ISO/IEC 26300) is to be used to publish documents to which the user should be able to make changes after downloading, e.g. public forms to be filled out by the user. This format is also made obligatory.
- For many years, Norway had no specific software policy. This is now changing. Our government has decided that ICT development in the public sector shall be based on open standards. In the future, we won't accept that government bodies are locking users of public information to closed formats, Ms Grande Røys says.
The new demands will take effect from January 1, 2009 for state bodies. The Ministry of Government Administration and Reform will be working to formulate regulations making this obligatory for municipal organs as well. The Government's aim is that the regulations should take force from January 1, 2009.
The government decision does not prevent state bodies from using other document formats in their communication with the users, provided that the documents also are produced in one of the obligatory formats, ODF or PDF.
Heidi Grande Røys says that state and municipal organs as well should be able to receive documents in these formats from their users and partners.
- This is the first step in standardising document formats. We are also considering formats for document exchange with the public sector and for the exchange of documents within the public sector, Ms Grande Røys says.
A list of obligatory and recommended standards in the public sector according to the Government's recent decision is to be found in Referansekatalog for IT-standarder i offentlig sektor (Reference catalogue of IT standards in the public sector, Norwegian edition only).
The Norskies are also pretty open about engineering standards: http://www.standard.no/
Most companies jealously guard their "intellectual property", Norway makes most of theirs freely available.
It ain't the books or documentation that make a project successful, it's the people.
Scandinavians are so selfsure about the quality of their english that they'll insist that your rightings aren't valid, as you merely speak american. I've been living in Sweden in some years and feel again the most common swinglishsigns. I job now as an oversitter from swedish to english, in addition to controlling english texts, and it has been a good affair.
... in furniture. In chairs to be precise.
Quite a few will be tossed about until Norway retracts this mandate, or adds "or OOXML"
In other news: Microsoft has hired a sizeable force of Blackwater interrogation specialists to kidnap key individuals and influence Norways' government decision and policy makers to change their terroristic software policies "with force if necessary." "This kind of socialist-communist software can not be tolerated in a capitalist market economy," Microsoft's Blackwater press-liaison said. Bush commented that "Norway, you're next on my Freedom and Peace list," and also noted that "Norway has oil." And that "because of it, they should well afford expensive Microsoft software" and that this kind of terrorist path can not be allowed for the Norwegians.
You sure nobody got bitten by a Møøse in there?
When I'm doing quick and dirty stuff I use PDF, but when I want real publication-quality material nothing but postscript will do the trick.
Well then, you better start calling people:
http://www.google.ca/search?as_filetype=doc&as_sitesearch=.gov
Of course there's a Office 2007 PDF plug-in available for free download.
(My CAPTCHA is "antique".)
This morning my 4 year old daughter (a norwegian/american half-breed) told me
Ikke gjør that, you Monkey!!!!
Jeg tror ikke de fleste tenker på "røy". Røys er faktisk et ord som kan brukes slik: steinrøys. Men en praktfull steinrøys blir jo desto mer morsomt?
In general it is far more efficient and economical to have a mutual ( and with a focus on mutual ) agreement of free tradebetween countries.
The problem with this efficiency is that your determination of efficiency is the investment centric return on the dollar, and investors do not actually add value to the economy. They do not invent, and they do not sell. There's little difference between someone who owns stock and calls himself or herself a capitalist, or a soviet era appartchik collecting his own private tax of corruption on the current 5 year plan.
Free Trade places a premium on the value of the investor in society and completely undermines the value of the inventor. As much as we ballyhoo the efficiency of free enterprise, we always find corporations with a dozen deadweight managers and hangers on for one talented developer that really drives the whole show, and usually does against the best efforts of those busisesses to impose a sort mediocrity that it gets in exchange for some predictability.
In general, free trade has destroyed America's manufacturing base, and, as a consequence, placed the middle class in constant jeopardy. Free trade is like socialism, a nice idea on paper, but one that ultimately didn't work. It just has taken longer for the disaster of free trade to play itself out in the United States than it did for Communism to destroy Russia, but, ultimately, the end result looks increasingly the same.
This is my sig.
anyone who uses a mac shouldn't freak out when suddenly something doesn't work on it.
Because I had it the opposite way I switched. After suffering through crashes with MS Windows, and not wanting to be treated like a criminal, I replaced my Windows PC with a Mac.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Older versions of IE have been made especially for the Mac
Ah but the Mac and Windows versions of IE weren't exactly compatible. A person going to the same website in both Mac and Windows versions of IE would not see the same thing. Then again this could be true of an browser that is cross platform.
FalconShould there be a Law?
for the Mac
I use NeoOffice, a native Mac port of Open Office. No X11 needed.
The fact of the matter is that if you are using Macs you will likely have compatibility issues every once in a while.
In the 5 months of using my MacBook Pro I have not had a problem with NeoOffice. While I haven't created or edited any docs with it yet, NeoOffice has opened Office 2007 .doc and .docx files I've downloaded from the net without a problem.
Microsoft could very well decide in the near future that it no longer wants to support MS Office on the Mac.
Though MS can threaten Apple to withdraw the Mac version of MS Office, I think MS would have to think long and hard before actually doing so. Courts, in the EU and US, may look at it as another example of how MS uses it's majority market position as a noncompetitive monopolistic practice.
FalconShould there be a Law?
WinXP is far far more compatible with any exiting Windows based application one would be REQUIRED to run in their business/government.
Because XP is being EOLed, End Of Life(ed). "And it's mainstream supports will last until 2009."
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm not a free market maniac but, really, should governments mandate particular specifications like this? Seems intrusive.
I did in the native port of Open Office for Macs, NeoOffice, without a problem. As for whether it can handle Office macros good I don't know.
FalconShould there be a Law?
My only question is - is there anything ODF doesn't do that businesses actually need their documents to do?
And do they support a scripting language?
My Journal
The magic sauce you ask? The secret is having a Minister of Government Administration and Reform, where the minister, Ms. Grande Røys have a Political Advisor that happens to be one http://no.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J%C3%B8rund_Leknes, a card-carrying geek if there ever was one;
Top 10 finalist in Norwegian programming championship, elected replacement representative to the legislative assembly since 2001, Opensource advocate and also bronze finalist of 2v2 StarCraft championship in 2000. He's even on Facebook. Did I mention he's probably younger than a lot of you guys, at 25?
Read this one over once more and cross out everything that would not be possible in the US, and you'll see.. Garbage In/Garbage Out. it holds true also for government (internet+tubes, anyone?).
... we are that stupid.
I'm willing to pay a tax and need to print the form from São Paulo city's site ( www.prefeitura.sp.gov.br ). Well, I just input my id number in my browser and get the politically incorrect answer:
"Incorrect browser. Use Internet Explorer" (in Portuguese, that is)
This could be a political issue. The former administration was pro- Free Software; the current one may want to state they're different.
Universal health care, true high speed broadband, an enlightened prison system, a beautiful nation, and now this -- is there anything wrong with Norway??? I sure would like to find out if there is -- that's why I wrote an open petition to their PM.
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
To mandate openness in a democratic country?
In which derided parallel universe do you live?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.