Norway has established a new policy mandating government adoption of open standards. Starting in 2009, all documents published on state-operated web sites will have to use HTML, PDF, or ODF formats. The policy aims to stimulate competition between office software vendors and make government documents more accessible to the general public.
Under the terms of the policy, HTML will be the standard format for all publicly accessible web content, PDF files will be used when the original appearance of the document needs to be preserved, and use of ODF is mandated in cases where a user needs to be able to modify a document downloaded from the government.
"Our government has decided that ICT [Information and Computer Technology] development in the public sector shall be based on open standards. In the future, we won't accept that government bodies are locking users of public information to closed formats," said minister of government administration and reform Heidi Grande Roys in a statement. "This is the first step in standardising document formats. We are also considering formats for document exchange with the public sector and for the exchange of documents within the public sector."
The standards adopted by government agencies could have an impact on software acquisition practices. Major office software vendors like IBM, Sun, and Microsoft have been involved in increasingly acrimonious disputes over standardization and legislative mandates that relate to standards. Norway's commitment to ODF will likely stir up some controversy.
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