Belgium is aiming to prevent a vendor lock-in, allowing the state to access data with any application that supports the open format. It is the first nation to openly embrace ODF.
The move sparked fierce debate that ultimately led to the departure of the state's chief information officer Peter Quinn.
ODF is defined by the Oasis standards body and has been ratified by the International Organisation for Standardisation as an official international standard. The format is supported by several applications including OpenOffice.
Microsoft will be using the OpenXML document format in its forthcoming Office 12 suite.
Although OpenXML has been submitted to ECMA for ratification, critics have argued that it lacks openness. Microsoft could change the standard in the future, making it impossible for users to access their documents.
Microsoft has publicly stated that it does not plan to support ODF. But third-party developers such as the Open Document Foundation have already started developing an ODF plug-in for Office 12 that would allow it to open and save documents in the ODF format.
The Belgium mandate is limited to the federal government which is relatively small in comparison to the governments for the Flemish and Walloon communities.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Tom Sanders
Quelle/Source: VNUnet, 26.06.2006
