UK government officially adopts Open Document Format

[ferrous]

[url]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/23/uk_government_officially_adopts_open_document_format/[/url]

[QUOTE]The [URL="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/open-document-formats-selected-to-meet-user-needs"]announcement[/URL] says PDF/A or HTML are now the standard “for viewing government” while ODF is now expected “for sharing or collaborating on government documents.”

There's some pointed language in the announcement, which includes a canned quote from Mike Bracken, executive director of the Government Digital Service to the effect that “Using an open standard will mean people won’t have costs imposed on them just to view or work with information from government.”[/QUOTE]

[Awesomecaek]

Oooh, that's great. Official work shouldn't be tied to proprietary software and standards.

[editline]23rd July 2014[/editline]

I wonder if this initiative includes looking for widely deploying free software alternatives among the government offices. It's indeed a way to save up a lot of money if done right.

[Zethin]

This'll hopefully save a lot of money for people in the future over there. Microsoft's stuff is expensive as hell.

[danharibo]

Great news. All public work should be using freely available tools where possible.

[smurfy]

The coalition has done some good IT stuff. They could have gone further, but they've probably been better than any previous government in this area

[Jsm]

Awesome, Microsofts lobbying has failed.

(For anyone unaware: Microsoft were trying VERY hard to get the government to use their propriety format)

[Col. Buggernuts]

A simple way to save a significant amount of money. Microsoft Office and free equivalents aren't sufficiently different that it would take an appreciable amount of time to get accustomed to the new software.
I would say going with Linux would also save them money, but then they'd have to find equivalents for all the programs they use, transfer data, find new tech support guys if the current lot they utilise aren't familiar with it and so on. That'd be a logistical nightmare.