[Random-bits] French Prime Minister Recommends Adoption of OpenDocument Format

[James Love]

http://opendocument.xml.org/node/173

French Prime Minister Recommends Adoption of OpenDocument Format
Submitted by carolgeyer on Tue, 2006-10-17 19:45.

eGovernment News cites a recently published report, commissioned by  
the French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, which strongly  
recommends that France should follow the example of Belgium and make  
Open Document Format (ODF) mandatory for all public bodies. The  
report, 'On equal terms', was prepared for the Prime Minister by the  
Member of Parliament for the Tarn region, Bernard Carayon. In it,  
Carayon calls for new legislation to make it compulsory for French  
government departments to use ODF for the creation and dissemination  
of documents. He also suggests that France should ask its European  
partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European  
level. Interoperability and the use of open standards are a  
precondition of European technological development, stresses the  
report. It argues that the widespread adoption of ODF would help  
encourage the development of software which supports ODF, and could  
create more opportunities for French and European businesses. ODF was  
approved as an ISO official standard file format in May 2006. Shortly  
after this, the Belgian federal government adopted a proposal to make  
ODF the mandatory standard for all internal government documents from  
September 2008 onwards. Belgium thus became the first Member State to  
take this important step towards Open Source standards aimed at  
ensuring the effective delivery of eGovernment services to citizens  
and enterprises. France now looks likely to follow suit, and other  
Member States are also examining this possibility closely. Carayon's  
report also recommends the creation, by the EU, of a body to ensure  
the technological independence of Europe, and calls for the setting  
up of a research centre addressing issues relating to the security of  
open source software.



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James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /  
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