The following article details governmental and other organizations from around the world who are in the process of evaluating the suitability of using (adopting) OpenDocument, an open document file format for saving and exchanging office documents that may be edited.
Overview
The OpenDocument format (ODF) was accepted as a standard by OASIS in May 2005, and by ISO in November 2006, as standard ISO/IEC 26300:2006.
Microsoft submitted another format, Office Open XML (aka OOXML), to Ecma International where it was accepted as a standard in December 2006. The Office Open XML specification was published as standard ISO/IEC 29500:2008 in November 2008.
OpenDocument has been officially approved by national standards bodies of Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Ecuador, Hungary, Italy, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, South Africa and Sweden.
NATO with its 28 members (Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and the USA) uses ODF as a mandatory standard for all members.
Africa
South Africa On October 23, 2007, the Department of Public Service and Administration of the South African government released a report on interoperability standards in government information systems. It specifies ODF as the standard for "working office document formats" (with UTF-8/ASCII text and comma-separated values data as the only alternatives).
Since April 2008, ODF is a national standard too, not only the standard to be used by government departments. South African code for the ODF standard is "SANS 26300:2008/ISO/IEC 26300:2006". By September 2008 all departments will be able to read and write in the Open Document Format. In 2009, ODF will become the default document format for South African government departments.
Asia
Hong Kong
The Hong Kong government releases an Interoperability Framework every year recommending file formats for various tasks. The framework's 2008 version (v7.0) recommends the use of Microsoft Office '97 or OpenOffice.org v2.0 (based on OpenDocument 1.0) file formats for collaborative editing of text documents, spreadsheets and slideshow presentations.
India Chandershekhar, India's secretary of Ministry of Information and Technology, stated that a National ODF alliance would help India play a role in ODF adoption. He characterized ODF as a positive development for e-governance, interoperability, and extending IT access in India.
The Allahabad High Court of India has decided, as policy, to use OpenDocument format for its documents.
Assam
Government agencies are required to: Use ODF Transition to open-source operating systems
Kerala
In 2007 Kerala released an Information Technology Policy designed to turn Kerala into a knowledge society.
They decided that open standards such as ODF would be followed in e-governance projects to avoid proprietary lock in.
Japan On June 29, 2007, the government of Japan published a new interoperability framework which gives preference to the procurement of products that follow open standards including the ODF standards. On July 2, the government stated it would also consider alternative document formats, viewing formats like Office Open XML (which had also been approved by organizations like Ecma International and ISO) as an open standard. The government also stated that a format's open status was one of the preferences considered when choosing software for deployment.
Government ministries and agencies are required to: Solicit bids from software vendors whose products support internationally recognized open standards
Open formats: Are to be preferred, and Must be used to promote exchange of information between ministries
Japan's Diet passed an open standards software incentive as part of its omnibus Special Taxation Measures law: Provides tax reductions for companies which buy open-standard based software Went into effect April 2008 and expires in March 2011.
Malaysia In August 2007, The Malaysian government announced plans to adopt open standards and the Open Document Format (ODF) within the country's public sector. The Malaysian Administration Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) issued a tender for a nine-month study to evaluate the usage of open standards.
From April 2008 on the use of ODF is mandatory within the public sector.
South Korea South Korean government adopted OpenDocument as a part of Korean Industrial Standards KS X ISO/IEC 26300 in 2007, but public documents are still made and distributed in .hwp format. There is no regulation of legislation about OpenDocument since 2007.
Taiwan ODF was chosen as an official standard in 2009. Large-scale migrations to ODF and LibreOffice began in 2014.
Europe
The European Commission has, since at least 2003, been investigating various options for storing documents in an XML-based format, commissioning technical studies such as the "Valoris Report".Valoris (2004). Comparative Assessment of Open Documents Formats Market Overview aka the "Valoris Report". In March 2004, the Telematics between Administrations Committee (TAC) asked an OpenOffice team and a Microsoft team to present on the relative merits of their XML-based office document formats.Bray, Tim. (September 24–26, 2004) SmartEC (Accessed on October 17, 2005. (Discussing Open Office XML ISO Certification).)
In May 2004, TAC issued a set of recommendations, in particular noting that, "Because of its specific role in society, the public sector must avoid [a situation where] a specific product is forced on anyone interacting with it electronically. Conversely, any document format that does not discriminate against market actors and that can be implemented across platforms should be encouraged. Likewise, the public sector should avoid any format that does not safeguard equal opportunities to market actors to implement format-processing applications, especially where this might impose product selection on the side of citizens or businesses. In this respect standardisation initiatives will ensure not only a fair and competitive market but will also help safeguard the interoperability of implementing solutions whilst preserving competition and innovation." It then issued recommendations, including: Industry actors not currently involved with the OASIS Open Document Format consider participating in the standardisation process in order to encourage a wider industry consensus around the format; Microsoft considers issuing a public commitment to publish and provide non-discriminatory access to future versions of its WordML specifications; Microsoft should consider the merits of submitting XML formats to an international standards body of their choice; Industry is encouraged to provide filters that allow documents based on the WordML specifications and the emerging OASIS Open Document Format to be read and written to other applications whilst maintaining a maximum degree of faithfulness to content, structure and presentation. These filters should be made available for all products; The public sector is encouraged to provide its information through several formats. Where by choice or circumstance only a single revisable document format can be used this should be for a format around which there is industry consensus, as demonstrated by the format's adoption as a standard.Telematics between Administrations Committee (TAC). (May 25, 2004) TAC Approval on Conclusions and Recommendations on Open Document Formats. (Accessed on October 17, 2005.)
An official recommendation for a certain format was not issued however.
Belgium A memorandum on the use of open standards for creating and exchanging office documents was approved by Belgium's federal Council of Ministers on June 23, 2006. OpenDocument was proposed as the standard for exchanging office documents such as texts, spreadsheets, presentations within the federal civil service.Belgium's federal Council of Ministers. (2006) Open standards: Belgium's federal Council of Ministers approves ODF (Open Document Format) . (Accessed on December 6, 2012.)
Since September 2007, every federal government department has to be able to accept and read OpenDocument documents.Techworld. (2006) Belgium adopts OpenDocument. (Accessed on December 6, 2012.)
Croatia Government agencies are required to: Make each government form posted on a public Web site “accessible in a way that makes it legible in accessible freeware applications” Options for meeting this requirement: ODF PDF HTML
Denmark The Danish Parliament has decided that ODF must be used by state authorities after April 1, 2011
Until then Government agencies are required to: Accept ODF and OOXML “data-processing documents” created by the public, businesses, and other governmental units
Government entities are permitted to: Refrain from implementing the new OOXML and ODF standard if doing so would incur “additional costs or inconveniences” or raise “IT security concerns”
Finland
The Finnish Ministry of Justice decided in December 2006 to migrate to the open source OpenOffice.org office suite and adopt the OpenDocument ISO standard. The migration was scheduled to commence from the beginning of 2007. The decision was based on an office software evaluation in 2005 and an extensive OpenOffice.org pilot project in 2006.
France
According to French government's RGI (general interoperability framework), ODF is the "recommended format for office documents within French administrations". OOXML is tolerated for "information exchange needs through tables".
Government agencies are required to: Accept documents submitted in XML formats: ODF format as like OOxml format (both are in "Observations") Use PDF/A to preserve text documents
Government agencies are encouraged to: Install OpenOffice.org (an open-source, ODF-based productivity suite) Use ODF to create text documents, spreadsheets, and slideshow-style presentations
Government agencies are prohibited from: Migrating to any productivity suite formats other than ODF
Germany
A large number of Bundesländer, state and goverenmental offices and cities widely use products that support ODF (e.g. LibreOffice, OpenOffice.org).
Federal
In December 2008 the governmental IT-Board of the Bundesregierung decided to make use of the ODF-Format in the Federal administration in order to improve IT-security and interoperability.Bundesministerium des Innern: IT-Rat der Bundesregierung eröffnet den Einsatz offener Dokumentenformate (ODF).
The Federal Foreign Office has migrated totally to the use of ODF formats also in the 250 foreign offices abroad (it has reduced its IT costs to a third in comparison to other Ministries ). In a message to the participants of the first international ODF-workshop in October 2007 the Federal Foreign Minister stated: "The Open Document Format, as a completely open and ISO standardized format, is an excellent vehicle for the free exchange of knowledge and information in the globalized age."
The Federal office for security in IT (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik ) uses with StarOffice on all computers the ODF format in a cast deployment.
Since September 2007 all communications with the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) and the Federal Patent Court (Bundespatentgericht) may be transmitted in the ODF format. The same has already applied for a while to other high courts, i.e. the Bundesarbeitsgericht,Formatstandards / Versionen the BundessozialgerichtFormatstandards / Versionen and many other courts in the Bundesland of Nordrhein-WestfalenFormatstandards / Versionen Formatstandards / Versionen and of the Free State of Saxony (Sachsen).Formatstandards / Versionen
Federal agencies will be able to receive, read, send and edit ODF documents beginning no later than 2010.