Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
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Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
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Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#2Originally this was indeed published as a Microsoft DOC file. But now it is a PDF file, generated in a Linux box. Nice :-)
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#3Note that this isn't a law (yet). This is a house initiative (motion?) that requests the current government to:
- mandate by law the use of open standards
- publish its knowledge about open source software through normal publication channels
The second provision is a small step towards creating a knowledge-sharing platform regarding the use and deployment of open source software in both government and business. The original motion asked for a dedicated platform, this amended version allows governments to use already-existing platforms.
I don't expect big changes from this, I suspect that MS Office Open XML would also be considered an open standard.
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#4Note that this isn't a law (yet). This is a house initiative (motion?) that requests the current government to: - mandate by law the use of open standards - publish its knowledge about open source software through normal publication channels The second provision is a small step towards creating a knowledge-sharing platform regarding the use and deployment of open source software in both government and business. The o…
It's an ISO standard and we remember how it was approved
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Op...
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#5The law will be into effect in 2017
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#6The Danish government mandated that you should be able to use both OOXML and ODF when communicating with the any branch of the government by 2008. As it turned out, when January 2008 came around, 20% of the the government offices didn't know how to deal with ODF files. By 2010 most could open ODF, while around 7% of the smaller kommuner (counties/cities) still didn't know how to deal with the open formats.
After that it has just sort of slipped out of the public spotlight. In 2010 nobody really used the ODF format, because ordinary people don't need to send documents to the government, it's mostly self service online and companies all use Microsoft Office.
I would very much doubt that the government offices actually use anything but docx for documents internally. Even if they really should use a simple format that would be easy to parse in the future.
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#7All software used by and written for the government should be open source, just like all research paid for with government funds should be open access.
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#8The Danish government mandated that you should be able to use both OOXML and ODF when communicating with the any branch of the government by 2008. As it turned out, when January 2008 came around, 20% of the the government offices didn't know how to deal with ODF files. By 2010 most could open ODF, while around 7% of the smaller kommuner (counties/cities) still didn't know how to deal with the open formats. After that…
None of those problems are anywhere close to being insurmountable. You just need competent people in the government to implement the right policies and ask for the right things in laws.
Just an example: if the EU as a whole said that by mid-2018, all document services and tools that work in the EU need to support ODF by default, then that is what would happen, and this issue would disappear.
The problem is you still have too many people that aren't too interested in making this happen in the EU, and even fewer people that have the competence and power to require all the right stuff to make it work. But all of it could be fixed with enough public pressure and political will.
Your solution seems to be to just throw our hands up in the air, because there's too little momentum right now to make the necessary changes.
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#9The Danish government mandated that you should be able to use both OOXML and ODF when communicating with the any branch of the government by 2008. As it turned out, when January 2008 came around, 20% of the the government offices didn't know how to deal with ODF files. By 2010 most could open ODF, while around 7% of the smaller kommuner (counties/cities) still didn't know how to deal with the open formats. After that…
None of those problems are anywhere close to being insurmountable. You just need competent people in the government to implement the right policies and ask for the right things in laws. Just an example: if the EU as a whole said that by mid-2018, all document services and tools that work in the EU need to support ODF by default, then that is what would happen, and this issue would disappear. The problem is you still…
None of those problems are anywhere close to being insurmountable. You just need competent people in the government
What's the word that means the opposite of tautology again?
Re: Netherlands parliament makes open standards mandatory
#10All software used by and written for the government should be open source, just like all research paid for with government funds should be open access.
All software used by governments should be whatever is best in terms of features/price/security/etc. Open Source is nice but not really important.
All data, however, should be in documented, standardized, open formats.
Where it makes sense, software should have APIs using common standards.
Where it's possible without revealing national secrets or personal information, those APIs should be open to the public,