Britain adopts ODF unifying format documents and abandon Microsoft formats

The British government announced the unification of file formats for documents in the public sector towards ODF, abandoning a Microsoft formats.

ODF (short for Open Document Format - open document format) will be this formula is the standard uniform and standard documents and government documents, as well as formulas PDF and HTML.

This decision comes after a long and controversial first started in 2011 and led to the occurrence of consultations have been concluded in February.

This step is inconsistent with the heavy pressure from Microsoft, as the Microsoft Insisted to Britain to use a format OpenXML (OOXML) as the format uniform - so the format used in Word documents Word documents - but critics responded, saying it not en Open source format.

This is because the British government delayed the adoption of ODF format is because of the constant pressure from Microsoft to Britain, as suggested by some sources.

The responses consultations about file formats tend overwhelmingly towards the open source format ODF as a standard.

The Executive Director Government Digital Service, Mike Bracken said :

I've made ​​reactions clearly how important it is to choose the right way, using open standard and this means that people will not pay Costs imposed on them for display or just dealing with information from the government, it's a big step forward, and I'm happy with it. 

The government mentioned the benefits of adopting this new approach :


- Citizens will not be back, companies and voluntary organizations need specialized software to open \ view or dealing with documents and government documents.

- People who work in the government will be able to participate in and deal with the documents in a unified coordination; This limits the problems of different formats.

- Non-governmental organizations will be able to choose the most ideal applications and cost-effective and convenience.

     

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Britain is planning to leave MS Office and move to open source

British ministries are looking to provide tens of millions of money annually through the abandonment of expensive software produced by Microsoft Corporation .

Britain says it can reduce a large proportion of expenditure during the transition to open source software , or software that can produce files open source (open document format - ODF) , such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice and Goolgle Docs.

It is set formats ( formats ) documents so that they are unified and standardized across Britain to help break what it calls the " oligopoly " and improve communication between the civil servants .

" We want to see a greater range of software used , up to enable civil servants to access the information they need and that they can get their work done without having to buy software licenses . "

This will help government departments to share documents and documents with each other simply .

Still many countries around the world turn to open source and proprietary software denouncing .

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