A great deal of excitement has been generated by UK Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude’s forceful announcement in late January that the UK government intends to mandate the adoption of compulsory document format standards in public administrations.
In the on-going struggle of policy makers seeking to break away from procurement practices that have led to proprietary lock-in, limited interoperability, and excessive costs, the UK government has signaled that they fully intend to level the playing field not by mandating a preference for free or re-used software as in Italy and France, but by mandating choice through the requirement of open standard document formats (not just .odf, but other open document standards too) in procurement.
Read more at OpenSource.com
