All data, however, should be in documented, standardized, open formats.
Where it makes sense, software should have APIs using common standards.
Where it's possible without revealing national secrets or personal information, those APIs should be open to the public,
1) what problem it is trying to solve
2) how it was developed (a git log would probably do)
3) how testing is ensured (code quality)
4) security (if my personal data is hosted by teh govt, I would feel a lot safer to know how it was secured - and BS like "it's encrypted with 256 bit encryption" does not help as does not tell us how it's implemented and policies around it's implementation). And results of the pen tests (along with what was done to improve it must be published)
5) after certain years, it would have to be open sourced (if stuff like National security is an issue, it could be pushed ahead but at one point, it would be considered legacy and retired - which is abandonware - which has to be published)
6) how much was spent on the product (not just govt employee salaries, but how much it cost to host it, test it, etc.)
7) all of the above should be easily accessible.
8) if open sourced, policies on how the public can help/contribute.
It will help guide a lot of policies, bring more accountability and also help push software development.
- MS Office's default file formats are open standards with open source libraries/ reference implementations - MS Office (both desktop and web app) can handle ODF very well nowadays.
At least for small business and home users, Google docs has become increasingly dominant with surprisingly little concern for long-term document accessibility. For example, Google Drive will only sync down links to Google doc files on desktop. Aside from manually exporting every single document you have in the preferred format, there is no way to get your documents for backup/archival purposes, and good luck switching to another service/software. It would be nice to see a little interest in standards/compatibility for google docs now that so many businesses use it.
Citation needed? FAFAIK the reference implementation is closed source, and there are no libraries -- only a powershell module that is actually a wrapper around the Word/Excel OLE objects.
The reality is we know it's not always terribly important. If you really want to preserve something, you'd use a format like markdown or LaTeX at the outside. Most things are weren't the effort, and I just want it to look pretty.
After that it has just sort of slipped out of the public spotlight. In 2010 nobody really used the ODF format, because ordinary people don't need to send documents to the government, it's mostly self service online and companies all use Microsoft Office.
I would very much doubt that the government offices actually use anything but docx for documents internally. Even if they really should use a simple format that would be easy to parse in the future.
Just an example: if the EU as a whole said that by mid-2018, all document services and tools that work in the EU need to support ODF by default, then that is what would happen, and this issue would disappear.
The problem is you still have too many people that aren't too interested in making this happen in the EU, and even fewer people that have the competence and power to require all the right stuff to make it work. But all of it could be fixed with enough public pressure and political will.
Your solution seems to be to just throw our hands up in the air, because there's too little momentum right now to make the necessary changes.
What's the word that means the opposite of tautology again?
- mandate by law the use of open standards
- publish its knowledge about open source software through normal publication channels
The second provision is a small step towards creating a knowledge-sharing platform regarding the use and deployment of open source software in both government and business. The original motion asked for a dedicated platform, this amended version allows governments to use already-existing platforms.
I don't expect big changes from this, I suspect that MS Office Open XML would also be considered an open standard.
https://www.forumstandaardisatie.nl/lijst-open-standaarden
https://www.forumstandaardisatie.nl/standaard/odf
Unable to locate OOXML
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Op...
