Belgium Chooses OpenDocument

Freggy writes "The Belgian government decided today that all public services should use open standard file formats for the exchange of office documents ( press release in Dutch, French). The reason is that they don't want to force people to have to buy a proprietary program to be able to read official documents. All federal public services should be able to read ODF files by September 2007. If no problems arise after a study, the use of the file format will be obligatory from September 2008."

go without saying

[jandar]

"The reason is that they don't want to force people to have to buy a proprietary program to be able to read official documents"

Incedible this isn't self-evident for any government.

This is very important

[Anonymous Coward]

Belgium is still the core of the EU: it's one of the three founding members and informally the capital state of EU, with Brussels as the administrative nerve center of the EU.

Belgium has a prioneering role in lots of initiatives, it's possible that other EU countries will take opening up their documents more seriously.

Hooray for Belgium!

Re:go without saying

[Kadin2048]

Well it's self-evident to most governments that aren't receiving a substantial amount of tax revenue from a particular company marketing the software, or where the individuals in that government haven't been given large campaign contributions by said company.

It's sort of a litmus test, in fact. It's like sending out a survey ("Question: Do you think that forcing all of your citizens to send between $80-300 USD each to Redmond, Washington, USA is a good idea?") but without having to do all the paperwork. You just watch the results roll in.

Re:MODERATION ABUSE!!! NOT A TROLL

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The parent comment is a factual statement rebutting a point in the summary of the story. Why it is modded -1 Troll is peculiar.

Probably because it blatantly ignores common knowledge, and at the same time speaks in a derogatory manner. I think the moderator is probably correct that it is willfully ignoring in the hopes of trolling, rather than actually being poorly informed and mistaken.

The MS free readers are Windows only. They are also illegal under antitrust law and the subject of current litigation. If the post was no modded down half the space in this article would have been wasted as hundreds of people needlessly pointed this out.

Re:that is a poor reason...

[c_fel]

Yes but does it run on linux ?

Re:Free?

[edbarrett]

I don't know. Will I need to install a new mouth to eat it?

Re:agree

[Anonymous Coward]

As Microsoft has historically offered freely downloadable 'Reader' programs for its various Office file formats, the argument for open standards needs to be much more than 'you can read it without paying for software'.

Re:that is a poor reason...

[gutnor]

"Besides, Word Viewer is, and always has been, free. "

It is not once you factor Windows price.