Norway Moves Towards Mandatory Use of ODF and PDF

Andy Updegrove writes "Norway has become the latest European country to move closer to mandatory government use of ODF (and PDF). According to a press release provided in translation to me by an authoritative source, Norway now joins Belgium, Finland, and France (among other nations) in moving towards a final decision to require such use. The Norwegian recommendation was revealed by Minister of Renewal Heidi Grande Roys, on behalf of the Cabinet-appointed Norwegian Standards Council. If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.' According to the press release, the recommendation will be the subject of open hearings, with opinions to be rendered to the Cabinet before August 20 this summer.The Cabinet would then make its own (and in this case binding) recommendation to the Norwegian government."

When will the US join?

This is excellent news. I'm expecting the US to be one of the last to adopt it because of the influence MS has on politics. Any thoughts?

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I don't know if they will be last, but I can say that this can only be good news. Open standards for documents. The mere fact that MS is fighting this with a 'standard' of their own should be indication enough to anyone that MS means to keep them locked in

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The mere fact that MS is fighting this with a 'standard' of their own should be indication enough to anyone that MS means to keep them locked into MS products.

Well, duh. That's what you do when you make your money from software licenses. The only thing that "obligates" them to make emigration possible is their status as a convicted monopoly.

If Flash hadn't come along, and Sun had locked down Java (and made a

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Sure, they (MS) think the MS OpenXML thingy is better, that's their job to think that way. The simple truth is that an open standard would comoditize MS products.

Not necessarily-- well, maybe I don't know quite what you mean by "commoditize". But really,

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Competing fairly is something Microsoft hasn't had to do for years. Otherwise, we would all get the OS and Office for free, or close to free, as OSes and word processors are mature technology which has already been fully paid for. How else could OpenOffi

Re:When will the US join?

The US is the last to adopt any kind of standard. They still haven't even picked up on the metric system yet. How do you expect then to standardize of document formats?

Re:When will the US join?

Actually, let's be totally fair here. Yes, having everyone in the world use the same measurement system would make a lot of things easier.

Yes, let's do be fair. Every country in the world except for Burma, the US, and Liberia [cia.gov] currently use the metric system as their primary method of measurement.

Having everyone in the world speak the same language would make things even easier -- indeed the benefits of a common language are far greater than the benefits of a common measuring system.

Especially if 94 percent of the world already spoke the same language it would make sense for the other 6 percent to learn it too. 6% being the 350 million people in USA, Burma, and Liberia.

Re:When will the US join?

Every country in the world except for Burma, the US, and Liberia currently use the metric system as their primary method of measurement.

Yep. That's why this evening I bought 2 pints of milk from the supermarket 2.6 miles from my home, travelling along roads with 20mph and 30mph speed limits to get there, probably with hideous fuel economy of about 20mpg, before returning home and walking to the pub so I could safely drink my pint of bitter without having to drive back, conveniently allowing me to pick up a quarter-pound burger for a late-night snack on my way home.

But yep, here in the UK we're metric through and through. :-)

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So, we'll make a bi-lateral treaty -- we'll accept the metric system as our official measuring standard as soon as France accepts English as its official language.
I'm afraid you're a little for this one - that particular deal was struck long ago: Britain w

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I thought Chinese was the most common language not English. :P

I hate PDF

First, let me say that I like the concept of a single file format that can be read by any computer and displays in a consistent manner. From that aspect, I applaud PDF.

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option). The reader insists in "improving performance" by running a program in my system tray for which I must remove the configuration myself (no option).

This is also the same reason that I hate Quick Time, so it isn't limited to a single file type.

Layne

Re:I hate PDF

I agree. Fortunately since it's a published standard, there are other PDF readers other than the one from the vendor you describe...

Re:I hate PDF

There is no such requirement. Many operating systems (Ubuntu, OS X, and probably everyone except .. ) bundle other lighter and nicer PDF viewers because they are nicer to the users.

Is it a question of time before a lightweight, free software pdf reader captures the windows userbase as well?

Re:I hate PDF

Is it a question of time before a lightweight, free software pdf reader captures the windows userbase as well?

foxit reader [foxitsoftware.com]

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foxit reader

...free, but not Free unfortunately.

Re:I hate PDF

However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option).

Try another PDF viewer. KPDF and XPDF are both great for Linux/X users. For a barebones Windows viewer, try SumatraPDF [kowalczyk.info].

If you're stuck with Adobe Acrobat for some reason, then you might try these instructions [petefreitag.com] to make Acrobat run a lot faster.

Just thoughts...

What about Okular?

I like KPDF as well and that's my default viewer, but look at what is coming: Okular [kde.org] promises to be, if not an Acroread killer, at least a very serious contender. Note that this is KDE4 stuff (ergo Qt4, ergo it may easily be on Windows machines by year's end!).

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err, Foxit Reader (win), KPDF (kde), Evince (GNOME), whatever OSX's built-in reader is, XPDF?
I don't remember the last time I used Acrobat

Re:I hate PDF

It's amazing how slowly word is getting around, but you do not have to put up with Adobe's bullshit. This company [foxitsoftware.com] makes a no-cost reader that absolutely blows Acrobat Reader away. It's lightweight, fast, stable and when you close the window, the process actually stops instead of just sitting in the background, screwing up your system.

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However, the current implementation requires that I have a bloated reader that typically includes Additional Crap (tm) in the installation which installs by default (if even given the option). The reader insists in "improving performance" by running a prog

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Actually, I found that there are several readers, particularly Foxit in windows, and KPDF in most other operating systems, which handle PDFs quickly and efficiently.

That being said, even sticking to just adobe's reader/generator, and printers, I have found

A good PDF viewer I recently found

Sumatra PDF is a good lightweight (under 1mb) freeware PDF viewer for Windows.

It opens PDF files extremely quickly (usually in less than a second on my rather average computer, compared to an average of almost 10 secs with Adobe Reader) and doesn't try to

Re:I hate PDF

I'm still using acrobat 5. It opens in less than half a second, uses only 12 megabytes of disk space, doesn't have a notification area icon, and just seems to me to work better than more recent versions. I've yet to find a PDF file I wanted to read that doesn't work (although it has now reached the point that almost all pop up a message saying they might not work properly, yet they always do).

Or, as other posters suggest, use an entirely different program.

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I like PDF.

There are free, open source PDF creators and readers out there. Actually, I like the Acrobat readers up to version 5.0. After that it became bloatware. What I like about PDF is that fonts are embedded right in the file, so you know that docu

Seems obvious

If adopted, it would require all government agencies and services to use these two formats, and would permit other formats (such as OOXML) to be used only in a redundant capacity.Reflecting a pragmatic approach to the continuing consideration of OOXML by ISO/IEC JTC 1, the recommendation calls for Norway to 'promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage.'

The results of this investigation seem obvious to me. They'll find that there are no significant features of the OOXML format that aren't already replicated by ODF. They will also find that OOXML is needlessly complicated by support for odd bugs and backward compatibility issues with previous Microsoft Office releases. Finally, they will find that a dozen or so major software providers are actively supporting ODF while only Microsoft is actively promoting OOXML.

After the report is released, Microsoft money will step in and suppress it. The guys who wrote the report will be fired, and a new report will be written recommending OOXML as an "industry standard" with "longstanding vendor support". ODF supporters will be recast as small companies that could go belly up at any time. The whole standardization effort will collapse in the backlash, and nothing will get done.

On the bright side, they're keeping up the good fight. Without this pressure, nothing will ever change.

And during the next elections...

The opposition parties will release evidence that an outside company BOUGHT those politicians and that their decision was made purely because of Microsoft's money.

They'll then run on a platform of hiring their programmers to work on their software for thei

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Yeah... You have no idea how envious Norwegians get of people who make more than themselves, especially if it is not deserved. Not long ago there was a huge uproar over one of the politicians getting a personal trainer covered by her party. And socialism h

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Yeah... You have no idea how envious Norwegians get of people who make more than themselves, especially if it is not deserved. Not long ago there was a huge uproar over one of the politicians getting a personal trainer covered by her party. And socialism h

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After the report is released, Microsoft money will step in and suppress it. The guys who wrote the report will be fired, and a new report will be written recommending OOXML as an "industry standard" with "longstanding vendor support".

That's called corrupt

Redundant copies?

> Other formats may be used however, as long as documents with the same content are available at the same time in ODF or PDF.

I suppose this is to limit opposition from MS and crew, but it's a bad idea. How's going to audit every document to be sure they're in sync?

Make a choice and stick with it.

Re:Redundant copies?

Simple, only the ODF document can be authoritative. Any derivative document can not be considered authoritative by default as it is not the Gov't spec'd format.
-nB

And how long will they be maintained?

So when the Open Standard copy becomes authoritative, how long do you believe someone will spend the time and effort keeping those "redundant copies" in sync?

Not very long. This is the old "path of least resistance". And it works.

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Think of PDFs as the final "compiled" product of ODFs. If you want to distribute the document in a non-editable, non-variable, and printable format that's accessible by all, PDFs are it. ODFs are more of the "source code" document used to produce the final

First Linus, then Pirate Bay and now this?

Sounds like the Scandinavian countries are too out-of-line. I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't petitioned the U.S. government to nuke them or at least go on a bombing campaign against these shameless eco(nomy)-terrorists.

Finland ain't Scandinavia

Scandinavia [wikipedia.org] = Denmark+Sweden+Norway. Scandinavia+Iceland+Finland = Nordic countries.

That's because all Scandinavian languages are mutually intelligible, and even though Icelandic is strictly speaking Scandinavian it is also very different from the other

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Finnish is a completely unrelated language altogether.

Finnish is from the Finno-Ugric language group which includes Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, and a smattering of groups in Russia. It is truly a bizarre language (in that it is very different from Indo-European languages -- which includes pretty much all t

Re:Finland ain't Scandinavia

Norwegian doesn't come in two variants you dolt. There's a multitude of dialects that vary a lot and two written forms based on these. One is bokmål and the other is nynorsk. Bokmål, literally, book-language, is mostly based on danish, while nynorsk is closer to the original old norse language. From a linguistic point, nynorsk is the natural successor of old norse while bokmål is a norwegianized danish. Very few people actually speak like the forms are written, most speak some sort of dialect where a lot of the 'correct' grammar orally is not correct if written.

Not Getting Excited

I keep hearing that some large company, county, state, or country is moving closer to ODF and (fill in FOSS of your choice), but it doesn't actually happen. Microsoft swoops in, independent thinking I.T. director is fired, reassigned, or re-educated, and nothing big happens. Microsoft may be paying some of these entities to continue using their software, rather than the other way around, to keep up appearances, but it still doesn't happen.

Give me a story where 50,000+ desktops have actually thrown Microsoft out, and kept them out, and then we may have a news story. Until then, stop wasting the bandwidth!

MS Patent Troll Biz Lurks Under ODF-OOXML Merger

Microsoft appears to be making moves towards turning a profit whether people accept their software or not. They can try to profit from Free and Open Source Software by ensuring that it must implement "patented" technology in OOXML. Just look at their latest insinuations regarding FOSS and Microsoft "patents" -- OpenOffice.org (which supports ODF) is in that list and it doesn't even have OOXML support!

If ODF is ever merged with OOXML then Microsoft will try to force free software developers to turn the same tricks Novell has. Or perhaps it will go after users in a RIAA-like rampage. This is why ODF should be protected from Microsoft's influence and OOXML (or any new standard Microsoft participates in) should probably remain untouched for at least 20 years.

Oblig. Monty Python

Does this mean that closed formats are now pining for the fjords?

Technical comparison

A white paper based on a technical comparison between the ODF and OOXML formats [freesoftwaremagazine.com]

...the OOXML "standard" is terrible from a technical point-of-view, even if you forget about Microsoft's motivation behind it.

Re:That is insane.

I agree that patent-free formats is good. However, one must specify something or run the risk of having numerous open formats chosen by anyone who might have a say. While this may be good for "freedom", it is not so good when you actually have to get something done. As ODF is now an ISO/IEC 26300:2006 standard it seems to meet the requirements better than most options.

Will it become obsolete? Surely. But it will have better staying power than just about anything else I've seen to this date.

Think railway guages

Exactly the same argument could have been made for railway guages, and yes, here in the UK we curse the decision to use 4'8.5" (I think, I'm sure someone will correct me) instead of Brunell's 6' but at least rolling stock can run on most tracks in the country.

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Well look at the recommendation; "promote the convergence of the ODF and OOXML, in order to avoid having two standards covering the same usage", yet they mandate two different file formats (and PDF does cover the same area mostly, except it's write once an

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ODF is more of a language than a program. It's like saying you need to speak Klingon (or other lang.) if you want to do business with me. There's nothing stopping you from learning Klingon, or speaking English as well, but you must know Klingon.
If Micros

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But, being required to use it if you're a govt. employee? Weird.

Not really. It's simply policy. Governments have hundreds of policies that need to be followed, this is just another one. The reason it gets coverage is of what it means. It wouldn't do to

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But it's all right for the restaurant and bar owners to make their employees breathe that smoke eight hours a day in order to make a living?

But it's all right for oil companies to put their employees on highly dangerous oil rigs, or fishing companies put t

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

Although I use LaTeX myself for most of my document production needs, asking government employees to use LaTeX to produce documents is probably a little bit unrealistic, no matter what you or I might think about the ease of document production using a TeX-based system. Publishers and professionals will continue to use tools like LaTeX, because in those sectors there are professionals who handle layout and expecting them to be able to use powerful but occasionally cryptic software is not at all unreasonable (authors rarely ever make decisions on how to layout the text of a book they've written). But here, we're talking about people that aren't layout professionals and who are used to WYSIWYG tools, for whom LaTeX would present an unreasonable learning curve.

LaTeX and TeX look great and are arguably still better than most of their direct competitors, and certainly produce documents that look vastly superior to those produced by WYSIWYG programs (as Knuth quipped, "What you see is all you get"). But the government is more concerned about content and the ease of producing it than how it looks. They also probably aren't typesetting complex mathematical formulae, which has historically been TeX's great strength.

And before anyone says as much, yes, I have heard of LyX -- but if you think you're getting all of TeX's power using a TeX editor like that, you'd be wrong. Plus, at that point, how is TeX superior to ODF? You may not realize this, but TeX (like PostScript) is a Turing complete language, complete with branches and loops, and there's no way that any editor, no matter how feature rich, could duplicate that level of complexity, for the same reason that there are no "WYSIWYG" tools for creating applications that duplicate all the functionality of C, C++, Java, C#, whatever.

You may think, "that's ok, let's just support a subset!" Not a bad idea (that is, in fact, what PDF does -- it implements a subset of PostScript that is not anywhere near as complex). But then you really have to make it a subset and only a subset, otherwise I might decide to edit the LaTeX code you wrote with your word-processor by hand and unknowingly create a beautiful document that no one can edit using WYSIWYG tools, because I strayed outside of the supported subset of the language.

Plus, people these days are gravitating towards XML-based formats, and for good reason: XML is easy to parse, standard, and ubiquitous. Using a non-XML based standard like some TeX-subset means having a completely different parser internally. XML is also structured as a tree, which makes dynamic content generation easy, whereas TeX, which was designed to be much more flexible, eschews such restrictions (to our great annoyance, as we cannot support all its exotic features for the reasons outlined above anyway).

Every time this sort of discussion comes up, someone invariably says "What about TeX?" Hopefully I've shed some light on why that's not really workable or ideal.

Re:So why not just LaTeX?

You may not realize this, but TeX (like PostScript) is a Turing complete language, complete with branches and loops

Unfortunately, TeX's Turing-completeness is implemented as a macro-expansion language. I use LaTeX for everything that's more than one page, and it is nice that I can still handle 15-year-old documents (except for the images which were tied to the emTeX printer drivers...), but it really sucks to change the layout because it is all in an almost-unstructured mess of macro expansions. Variable scoping rules are weird, you're restricted to max 255 counter variables, it can't do true floating-point arithmetic, and so on. In practice, you're dependent on packages written by TeX gurus, that often don't cooperate with each other.

It's time for a successor to (La)TeX. It's great what TeX can do given that it was originally designed to run on 1982-era hardware, but now we could use something that has less obscure internals so that mere mortals can extend its functionality. And the successor could have things like native unicode support, elegant interfacing with type-1 and truetype fonts, left-to-right and up-down scripts, and so on.

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LaTeX3 is being developed actively. I don't really know anything about it, and I don't know if it gets rid of (La)TeX's quirks, but... one can hope, and it might be worth looking into.