Here’s an anglicisation from riflemann on SD (the original is in Dutch or French only at the moment).
Use of open standards for office document exchange.
The ministerial department has decided upon the open standard format to be used for the exchange of office documents.
Minister Vanvelthoven: "The format of office documents such as text documents and spreadsheets is currently based primarily on popular office suites such as Microsoft Office and Corel Wordperfect Office. Documents produced by these products can usually only be read by those products. When you need to exchange documents with someone else, you're also forcing them to use the same software that the document was made with."
To reduce the dependencies on these proprietary formats, we need to make use of open standard formats. XML is a standard for the exchange of information between diverse computer systems; an XML based document is thus guaranteed to have long term accessibility to the information within. The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is an XML based document format that is approved by the ISO (International Standards Organisation). Hence we propose to to settle on the use of ODF as the standard format for the exchange of office documents such as from word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, as soon as it's approved by the ISO.
All federal government departments must be able to read ODF documents by September 2007. This doesn't exclude the use of other formats. The responsibility of guaranteeing readability is up to the relevent departments.
Depending on the result of a [federal ICT dept] managed impact analysis, from September 2008 the official format for the exchange of office documents will be ODF.
Belgium is often educational to watch, and this is no exception.
Use of open standards for office document exchange.
The ministerial department has decided upon the open standard format to be used for the exchange of office documents.
Minister Vanvelthoven: "The format of office documents such as text documents and spreadsheets is currently based primarily on popular office suites such as Microsoft Office and Corel Wordperfect Office. Documents produced by these products can usually only be read by those products. When you need to exchange documents with someone else, you're also forcing them to use the same software that the document was made with."
To reduce the dependencies on these proprietary formats, we need to make use of open standard formats. XML is a standard for the exchange of information between diverse computer systems; an XML based document is thus guaranteed to have long term accessibility to the information within. The OpenDocument Format (ODF) is an XML based document format that is approved by the ISO (International Standards Organisation). Hence we propose to to settle on the use of ODF as the standard format for the exchange of office documents such as from word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, as soon as it's approved by the ISO.
All federal government departments must be able to read ODF documents by September 2007. This doesn't exclude the use of other formats. The responsibility of guaranteeing readability is up to the relevent departments.
Depending on the result of a [federal ICT dept] managed impact analysis, from September 2008 the official format for the exchange of office documents will be ODF.
Belgium is often educational to watch, and this is no exception.
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