The Belgium government has decided to adopt the open
source Open Document Format (ODF) across its
operations.
The decision means that every federal government service must be
able to read ODF files by September 2007. ODF is set to become the
standard exchange format a year later if analysis shows no adverse
impact from the move.
ODF was approved as an international data format standard by the
International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) last month, in
a significant boost for the open source format.
Governments have become increasingly interested in ODF because
of fears that they could become “locked in” by proprietary software
that could limit the ability to access, retrieve and use official
records and documents in the future.
In the US, the Massachusetts state government is also
considering a switch to ODF, with migration envisaged by January
2007.
