[News] Denmark Gets Help with ODF Adoption
Roy Schestowitz
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Netherlands helps Denmark with open IT
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| The Dutch government has provided Denmark
| with information regarding the Dutch
| national plan Heemskerk for open government
| IT.
|
| In Denmark, there is heated debate about the
| approach for open IT usage by the
| government. One of the obstacles is the open
| file format for mandatory use by the
| government and government organizations. ODF
| (Open Document Format) and OOXML (Open
| Office XML), originally developed by
| Microsoft, are the candidates for use.
|
| The Dutch Ministry of Finance shared with
| Denmark the experience and knowledge it has
| gained from the national plan Heemskerk and
| the resulting action plan "Nederland Open in
| Verbinding" (NOiV). Finance spokesman Edwin
| van Scherrenburg confirmed to Dutch IDG news
| site Webwereld that the two governments are
| in contact. "We have shared all information
| regarding NOiV," he said.
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http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/12/15/netherlands-helps-denmark-open-it
Locked out by design
,----[ Quote ]
| Software vendors have tried on and off to
| lock these documents so users needed the
| original software to use them. This can go
| horribly wrong, as some users of Microsoft
| Office 2003 have just found out to their
| cost, when the software refused to let them
| get at their documents – their own
| intellectual property. This is a design
| feature of Microsoft Office software which
| happened to misfire.
|
| What it highlights is that no-one outside
| Microsoft has a clue what is hidden inside
| their secretive software. It also highlights
| the importance of not using a secret format
| to store valuable office documents. The safe
| way to store valuable documents is in
| OpenDocument Format (ODF) – an ISO approved
| open standard which isn’t owned by any one
| company. It’s the best guarantee against
| being held to ransom one day by a software
| supplier.
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http://www.mealldubh.org/index.php/2009/12/14/locked-out-by-design/
Recent:
DK: Chair of Denmark's standards committee: 'Microsoft is lying'
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| Mogens Kühn Pedersen, chair of the Danish
| Standards Committee, says Microsoft is
| lying when it says it will implement ISO
| OOXML in the next version of its suite of
| office applications.
|
| On Saturday Pedersen accused the software
| vendor of lying, in an article by the
| Danish news site Business.dk, part of the
| newspaper Berlingske Tidene. Pedersen,
| professor of Informatics at the Copenhagen
| Business School, on Monday afternoon
| confirmed his statement: "I realise these
| are blunt remarks to make as chair of the
| committee, but when you advise the
| government you have to tell the truth."
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http://www.osor.eu/news/dk-chair-of-denmarks-standards-committee-microsoft-is-lying
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