French Government Recommends Standardizing on ODF 210
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "From the InfoWorld article: All French government publications should be made available in OpenDocument Format (ODF), according to a report commissioned by the French prime minister. The new report also suggests that France ask its European partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European level. It is recommended that the government will fund a research center dedicated to open-source software security as well, adds the article."
misread (Score:3, Funny)
Wouldn't that make it a prediction, rather than a recommendation?
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Or think of the European Parliament. Who was the supporter of the freedom of software development and opposed Microsofts aggressive lobbying groups? Michel Rocard, former French prime minister.
Once Again Europe shows how it ought to be done... (Score:2, Insightful)
ohhh, finally a standard! (Score:2, Interesting)
The headline should read "French Government Recommends Standardizing on ODF, too!"
Because most people use
The real news here is the big F-U to Microsoft: We are sick of using only your software. Our governments are beginning to reccommend using alternate methods because we do not trust you. If you continue to
Re:ohhh, finally a standard! (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazing that this hasn't happened yet, though, isn't it? Europe's entire IT economy dependent on a single corporation somewhere in the US, and they don't seem to mind.
What if tomorrow US law causes Microsoft to make changes to Windows (say, to enforce the DMCA somehow), and Microsoft decide to keep a single code base in the rest of the world (less effort, since the changes are deep in the kernel)? If asking Microsoft politely for a 'clean' version fails, how would you prevent this scenario - legislation? Might work, but only partially (witness the fines from recent history against Microsoft in the EU). This is only one example, admittably highly speculative; but nations need to consider worst-case scenarios.
And this is to say nothing about nations which have a less-friendly relationship with the US. What if the US and China find themselves at war tomorrow, and Microsoft immediately stop releasing patches for Chinese IP addresses? Will the Chinese IT war effort be contingent upon successful hacking of WGA and so forth? Yes, this is a possible fix, but again - how can they not consider the worst-case scenario where this does not work very well?
What does that have to do with "IT economy" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
What does that have to do with the IT sector? Or do you mean that the entire economy is based on IT?
If it's the former, then that's wrong. IT is (or shoud be) just a tool that you use to get your work done. That's the same whether it's coordinating a fleet of taxis or running a governement or anything else. "making" and "selling
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Ahhh, you have hit upon it. You have uncovered the hidden agenda.
Exactly.
And of course no one outside of the original vendor
What are you smoking? Give us some. (Score:2)
Any computer systems any country uses are securely built around products they can control during a crisis situation (if you think the Chinese military waits for patches released directly by MS for vital equipment, then you are watching too many bad movies).
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Yes, I agree. But even if all the frontline and otherwise critical systems are MS-free, the economy and industry supporting the Chinese war machine is based (IT-wise) on Microsoft. So, the effects might not be immediate, but would eventually be tremendous.
The French attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
So France is actually a pretty good place to promote ODF. It checks all the boxes. It's a standard. Any particular Francophone bits of it, the French government can influence by providing support. It is not anti-American but it is independent of America. Work on French support for ODF brings together France, Belgium, the doms and toms, Canada and Francophone Africa - so it is another small step in building links in the French speaking world.
And ODF should be relatively easy to sell to the bureaucracy. Gentlemen and ladies, this is a French solution to an international problem. No longer will we bound by the constraints of the Anglo-Saxons...
The only negative is that, in accordance with the immutable rules of French abbreviations, they will want to call it FDO.
More than Napoleon... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than assuming a cult of Napoleon and the Revolution, I would say they just are better bureaucrats. A lot of US political culture assumes the market "takes care of itself", and is almost ideologically against state intervention, to the point the US are the last country still using medieval units of measure because no one enforces the metric system.
In France (and most other countries in Europe) the government can own large strategic companies (Renault, for example) and that's considered alright; I do not know what US citizens would say if Bush tried to buy Ford for the government for "strategic economic reasons". Frenchmen are mostly fine with the idea of a state intervening directly into the economy.
Now that's true that politicians in charge of the economy can do a lot of bullshit, but so can CEOs (one word, Enron). The French system may be stiffer and less adaptable, but allows top-down decisions to trickle down better.
Probably FOD, "Format OpenDocument", as OpenDocument is a proper noun.
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Agree, except (Score:2)
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Nicely summarised. I'd add that there's a corollory inherent in the above which can be expressed as "You get what you deserve." In the US, we have lousy b
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If the metric system provided tangible benefits rather than just being aesthetically pleasing then the switch would have occurred already. The US government did plan at one time to force conversion to the metric system until it realized it was an expensive solution in seach of a problem. I suppose we just expected a return on our investment that the metric switch couldn't deliver.
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The US hasn't completely foresworn state intervention in the market. In fact, the US political systems is setup to receive bids so that state intervention in the market is dictated according to the wishes of the market.
The large amplification of this particular feedback mechanism makes me nervous about the stabilty of both the state and the market.
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Personally, I like the the idea of OpenDocument being FOD to Microsoft's aircraft...
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Re:The French attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
And the US has a confused view of the French. Especially recently.
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The current administration is not confused about France, France disagrees with the views of the current administration, France therefore has it's place on the Axis of Evil list, and it probably hosts terrorists. A lot of them.
Don't move from where you are by the way, the police will be at your place soon to make you realize that the current administration is not "confused" in any way, and that you shouldn't voice such anti-american though
Re:The French attitude (Score:5, Interesting)
What a lot of ignorance is displayed there. (Score:2)
The French resistence from the start looked for US and British support, they were unequivocal about who were friends and who were foes.
US people do not appreciate other countries pride for their own culture because the US has none of its own. Say what you meay, but the US is a y
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And don't think that France is grateful for the part that all nations played (especially the US), but how far should that gratitude go?
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Of course it can't have made much difference because every American knows that the French always run away or surrender when it comes to a battle.
Buoyage (Score:5, Informative)
True
> The french insisted on keeping their own standard when everyone else had a different one in place.
False. IALA System B is used in the Americas, the Philippines and Japan. Everywhere else in the world uses IALA System A.
Now if you had wanted to bring up prime meridians...
FYI - I teach the UK RYA (Royal Yachting Association) yachtmaster course.
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but your "french attitude" is a bit missplaced
.. if u want a sample of stubborness in applying standards, u better look at the UK.
they are quite funny in that respect to
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The reason they haven't changed to kilometres is the same as the reason they haven't adopted right-hand-side driving - as an island nation there was no need to integrate their road systems with the rest of Europe - note that you'll find a similar situation in many island nations: see Japan, Australia. Modifying their entire road syste
To a certain extent... (Score:2)
Would make a lot of sense as (as you say) Britain otherwise uses metric almost everywhere (pints being the notable exception; but it's hard to see how you could reduce them to 500ml without formenting revolution!)
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As for the advantages, I don't know how significant they'd be. Has it really made much difference in Eire? How often do we have a use for scaling things from mm & m to national kilometric distances? Not all that often, I'll wager.
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With regard to the advantages, little things like Ordnance Survey maps [ordnancesurvey.co.uk] and the British national grid [wikipedia.org] bei
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You talk as though France and the rest of the world took metrication on board at the turn of the 19th century, and then the UK brought up the rear. Do even a little cursory research [wikipedia.org] and you'll realise how wrong you are and how rocky the global adoption of metric measurements was.
OK, sorry (Score:3, Funny)
Good Lord, this is Slashdot. If you want academic standards of discussion and analysis, you could always try Digg!
And in case you are wondering, I think they have the right attitude. It's _your_ interpretation that suggesting that the French want to encourage the use of French and international standards, and mentioning Napoleon is xenophobia. Which suggests that you think tho
Your intial comment is lousy. (Score:2)
Why doesn't this sort of thing happen more often ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the main reason why this sort of thing (ODF and open source in general) is not more widely accepted is money (tco, licenses, etc) or political/economic pressure (gates/bush pressuring someone to spend their $ the right way).
I think the main reason why ODF/Open source/etc is not more widely accepted is reluctance to change.
To butcher a Dune quote, "They think in circles. Their minds resist squares"
A lot of businesses (and lets face it, government administration is a business) know that pdf/ms-doc works, they have been using it for a long time. They are used to the crappy interface, they are used to the updates/pop ups/etc. They are used to the fact that it works and they are used to the error messages that pop up. They and their accountants are used to the monthly charges for PDF/office software.
It is very, very hard to beat/argue against that sort of habbit. Yes, to us logical slashdotters (l0lz111) ODF makes perfect sense. Its great, we should bathe in it, eat it and breath it. It has word 'open' in it? great! More please!
But a lot of the established businesses/governments/organisations, it is not the same. An argument "but it is cheaper" or "but it is better" can be meat with "but what we have works well enough" and "but we have always done it this way and there has never been a problem" and then there is of course "why fix it if it isn't broken?" and "ok but what if we change over and it doesn't work?"
It is very hard to argue against established procedures/models/etc. What is plain to technical people is not always so to managers and accountants (often the same person). My point? More technical people in management.
So yeah, big cheers to the French government. they are definitely doing the right thing, in the right way.
Re:Why doesn't this sort of thing happen more ofte (Score:4, Insightful)
TCP/IP is an open standard that has changed drastically over the past 15-20 years or so as the Internet has created a demand for new er application services like HTTP or SSH. By virtue of the fact that open standards are created by an open commitee, for any formal change to a standard, there needs to be lengthy discussion amongst everyone as to whether a change is of benefit to everyone or not - yes, those changes can appear to be slow to appear but I wouldn't call it "reluctance".
And as regards ODF, Microsoft have as much right as you or I to contribute to the definition of the standard and, based on their experience already with documents of various formats, can probably bring much "to the table" in ideas anyway.
What Microsoft don't seem to realise is that they cannot have it all their own way - on one hand, they want to now restrict piracy of their products (and good luck to them) but, on the other hand, by doing this they will force out a proportion of their user base (who simply won't or cannot afford to pay for MS products) meaning that the potential demand for ODF will increase. It strikes me as inevitable that MS will have to recognise and support ODF in the future, whether they like it or not.
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I don't think you got his point. Open (or closed for that matter) standards change all the time. But people certainly don't like change. If they have some kind of cruddy gimmick in place that they are used to even though it's broken and you offer a simpler, overall better and mostly seampless replacement, people *will* resist it because it's different.
In my experience, it certainly is the main hurdle that OSS
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I can't see where you get this idea from that there is a "reluctance to change" open standards. TCP/IP is an open standard that has changed drastically over the past 15-20 years or so
TCP/IP is a standard for techies & geeks. Techies and geeks (A) Like shiny new things & (B) Like things that work better.
Joe Bloggs MBA is not a techy and not a geek. He likes what he knows. He is happy with "good enough", and doesn't wire his washing machine to a 100 Base T network just so his PC will tell him when
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Fench ODF (Score:5, Funny)
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Cheese... (Score:3, Funny)
No, no, no... If it's Steve Ballmer we are talking about it's a "500 pound gorilla with a chair" not cheese, a chair...
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The correct saying is a "900 pound gorilla and a chair", to be used in humor, even though 500 pounds is closer to his actual weight. But that's only because he's been dancing around, sweating to the oldies.
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I foresee a problem (Score:2)
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you mean, selling software? (Score:2)
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much more hardcore (Score:2)
This calls for making IT interoperability a "fundamental rule of common law". Somebody 'sgonna be kissing their secret network protocols goodbye! The report also cal
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There are risks to legislating compatibility. However, in this case, legislation is probably required.
Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:5, Insightful)
You're confusing a product with a business method.
A monopoly is created and maintained through business tactics (i.e. flooding the market with (initially) cheap product to kill off competition, strongarming resellers and OEMs, etc).
An open standard, on the other hand is just a tool. If a better tool is made available, there's nothing preventing the market from switching over to the new tool and phasing out the old one (i.e. the transition from ISA to PCI)
Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:5, Insightful)
The grandparent would seem to be a reasonably well masked troll, since the counterpoints to this statement are obvious and well rehearsed here on slashdot. But I'll throw my 2 cents into the pot.
In addition to the other fine comments regarding standards, let us not forget that this proposes an exchange standard. There's nothing stopping anyone from using propietary MS Word formats all the way until they need to send the document to someone in the French (and hopefully later the EU ) government. Well, there's nothing stopping anyone as long as MS implements the standard. Do they?
The problem with the current situation is the presence of de-facto propietary standard. Other word processors can't compete because everyone already has Word, and thus people buying new software want ot be able to read and write the latest propietary Word documents. MS exploits this, using it as a tool to ensure the eventual adoptation of it's newer version releases. This is good short term business strategy, but it's harmful for the rest of us. In that sense one can see this as the workings of the free market. If MS were a more benevolent monopolist, allowing open access to its document standards so other OS's and Word Processor developers could follow their standards, there would almost certainly be less anti-monopoly activity against them. One could say they are following, in tradtional corporate strategy, a greedy algorithm to formulate its strategy.
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The grandparent would seem to be a reasonably well masked troll,
It's probably an astroturfer, that's why such messages keep getting repeated.
This single decision could cost M$ hundreds of thousands of euros. You honestly think that a company that fine and upstanding isn't flooding every discussion they can with their propaganda?
---
New game: Spot the lying astroturfer [wikipedia.org] on
/.!
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On the other hand, there are plenty of MS zealots out there, for a variety of wierd reasons. So who knows?
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reading comprehension? (Score:2)
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Open standards actually encourage innovation because no one has to write their own e-mail protocol or web protocol. It also does not hinder the adoption of new products because if I can just replace my current e-
Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't think of a computing standards process that has hurt innovation. Certainly there are plenty examples of standards that have succeded versus their proprietary counterparts (TCP/IP instead of NetBEUI or AppleTalk, the HTTP and HTML instead of MSN or Rainman (AOL's proprietary page definition language)).
If someone has a great new idea, why can't they get it added to an existing open standard? Or even create a competing open standard. If it is innovative enough, it will be adopted. Standards aren't a monopoly. Standards still have to compete for mindshare.
The problem with open standards, for companies like Microsoft, is that they discourage lock in. If every word processor could edit all your files with full fidelity, you would have a lot less incentive to stick to Microsoft Word. If all server software worked perfectly with Microsoft Windows clients, there would be a lot less Microsoft server licences sold.
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Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:5, Insightful)
The first four you mention are all openly defined and stable, if perhaps encumbered with patents. They're implemented by literally thousands of small and large software applications. DOC is a messy unpublished format (I hesitate to use the word "standard") and it's a great effort for other vendors to reverse-engineer it, a situation MS is very happy with and is unhappy if required to use a less obscure format.
As for "it's what people have always used", you are obviously very green (well, in comparison with myself). In the early 80s, "everyone" used WordStar. In the late 80s, "everyone" used WordPerfect. Only with Windows did MS leverage its inside knowledge of the OS and its drivers to take a lead with WinWord. The early versions took great pains to be able to use WordPerfect files (which of course were also prorietary, but well-understood) and to emulate its features.
By all accounts, the DOC format is full of kludges and is not somethgn to be proud of or emualte by choice. I doubt I am alone in having Word documents corrupt spontaneously, or balloon unaccountably to gigantic sizes.
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I know all about that. I work in DTP and have had to deal with all kinds of files. Now of course when people say "file" they mean "MSWord file", and are baffled at the idea that there is any alternative, which makes me rather sad; especailly as I am forced to use this myself. But "MSWord file" is no guarantee of compatibility. After a file has been passed back and forth between several people the style, layout, spelling, fonts, page size.... all change with no one r
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I think a little company called Google will help there with Google talk [google.com].
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It's not open source.
I don't know about you, but I started using it because it was integrated into my GMail. Most of my friends use GMail now, because it's such a good webmail, and so instead of trading IM names and what programs we use we now just click on eachother's names in the contact list. I've had the same AIM name for about 8 years, but since I got GMail I've hardly even bothered with it.
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You are aware that MSN is controlled by a corporation just as much as Google Talk is, right? If you want to be free of corporations, Jabber is perfect for you because you can run your own server (and use transports to bridge to the MSN network until your friends switch).
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Anyways, GTalk doesn't blow just because you and your stupid friends are attached to Microsoft.
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No you don't; you can use Jabber and an MSN transport.
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It should be no problem for innovating companies to add new XML tags to the ODF document formats or include entirely new components to it. The good things is that other programs that don't support those new features should still be able to load the document, albeit without the new feature.
ODF is designed for both backward and forward compatibility.
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If I create a document in a future version of ODF, I won't be able to load it into an old appliction using a previous version of ODF? So basically ODF will force you to upgrade your software (and hardware) to match the latest features required by the latest ODF specs used? That would really suck if that were true.
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Can you include other namespaces? For example, can you have an ODF file with a big chunk of SVG in it and still call it ODF?
Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:3, Insightful)
In general commercial terms, I agree that legislation shouldn't (usually) require companies to avoid innovation -- that's how innovation happens, after all. With government entities, though, I have no problem with solid standards being adopted for communicating information. I'd quite happily accept a mandate stating that government documents
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So Microsoft's proprietary standard(s) is/are future proof? And open standards never evolve?
Anyway, we're talking about a file format for exchanging documents. Necessarily there has to be a high degree of standardisation. The question is, who defines it -- Microsoft, or a public institution.
Customers are free to purchase software that meets
Re:You can have any flavor you like, if it's vanil (Score:2)
Innovation?
Well, you can innovate in your user interface (see Office 12's Ribbon), or in quite a lot of UI features and stuff (spell & grammar checking) without the need for your own format.
And if you need to make the format evolve, just get on the format's standardization comitee/board, argue your point, and make the format evolve.
What do you say, others will be able to implement the innovations you add to the format? Why yes, that's called levelling the playing field, and it gives you (as a user) s
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That sounds more like Redmond than Russia, especially since the
.DOC "format" was merely a side-effect of how Word happens to serialize its memory.
Re:How long before the Microsoft rebuttal report? (Score:4, Informative)
As for buying viewpoints in influencial circles, the french politics are far from the US lobbying model. Don't assume what works in the US works everywhere.
Is it going to spread throughout Europe ? I would hope so, but it is unlikely to be made a requirement.
Buying support (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't doubt that Microsoft will fight this and attempt to drag it out as long as possible, but I'm not convinced that Microsoft will be able to buy its way into French politics, or many other countries. The US Federal Government is quite an unusual form of democracy when compared with the rest of the world, considering some of the things that seem to go on. Not every democracy is designed such that mega-corp
Re:How long before the Microsoft rebuttal report? (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, and from what I heard, the idea is to first swith the Windows softwares the administration uses to equivalent softwares that do exist on other OS the ultimate goal being to switch from Windows to Linux when all the applications are replaced. I guess the ODF switch is just another step in that direction.
Government websites and web services are already all built on open source software. I'm happy to hear that my government is spending less on windows licences and I do really hope that they'll make it and that it will be used as an example for other European countries.
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A much more effective response for EU governments is simply to stop buying Microsoft themselves. France trying to lead the EU governments into a switch to ODF will go a long way towards removing Microsofts ability to man
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It was only a few years ago, when a French friend of mine pointed out that SNCFs (The french national railroad, a government entity) was IE only.
I was completely flabberghasted, since I thin it's outrageous for any government entity to implement browser specific websites. I trust that this changed then.
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I buy all my tickets from that site, and I haven't been in a waiting line at a station for ages.
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Well, I would have said that making filling in a tax return over a secure connection platform-specific was pretty tricky, before trying to fill in my French tax return. (And with Windows you have to be an administrator for their java app to work properly.) As I said, just providing a certificate as a
.exe is a good way to make using that certificate without Windows relatively difficult.
See here [interieur.gouv.fr] for the
.exe certificate example (link 2).
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Microsoft has threatened to invade France to reimpose "order" on the chaos of the ODF. France has pre-emptively surrendered.
This idotic attempt at making fun should not call for an answer, but it is offensive enough that I'm making one. France casualties in WWI alone were higher than the total of USA casualties among all wars they fought, american civil war included, while our population ratio has been a steady one fifth of yours (sources : [infoplease.com], [about.com]
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Although your post is otherwise very informative, you seem to be confused in your geography: the USA is not in Europe, and France is not in the Pacific, currently or otherwise. ; )
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Russia is European too (in terms of genealogy and culture, if not entirely in terms of geography). I know they haven't been doing so well since the Cold War, but I'm sure've still got some of their arsenal left.
(By the way, my previous post was intended as a joke.)
Re:Breaking news from Paris (Score:4, Insightful)
As an American who has always been treated well whenever I've visited France, I'm somewhat embarassed by the tired old "cheese eating surrender monkey" jokes. I think that America's popular disdain for France stems from a perception (much of it quite valid) that France has recently adopted certain foreign and domestic policies that work against our interests. In fact, it is a common perception in America that many of these French policies were adopted for the primary purpose of frustrating what the French people perceive (much of it quite validly) as American hegemony. Let's face it, while France was correct in opposing war with Iraq, your prime minister's (then foreign minister's) world tour to oppose the war wasn't purely for altruistic motives; France wanted to test the waters to see if it could unite other countries in opposition to American foreign policies in general. Many Americans also view France's foreign policies as over-reliant on diplomacy without any real teeth, especially when one party involved clearly can't/won't offer what the other parties require. Of course, France's over-reliance on diplomacy isn't as big a sin as America's disgusting under-reliance on it. Hopefully one day soon American and French foreign policies and methods will become most closer together, and "freedom fries" and "cheese eating surrender monkey" jokes will just be an embarassing footnote in the history books.
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I agree with your reply. Up until Napleon's final defeat, and later France's humiliating loss in the Franco-Prussian War, France had for centuries been one of the most successful warrior nations on the planet.[...]That said, France does sometimes repeat its mistakes in war. From the citadel of Bitche up through the Maginot line and later Dien Bien Phu, France took a very long time to realize the limitations of fixed defenses.
Thank you for having taken the time to write a documented answer. Truth is, Fran
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