04 January 2009

Major Win for ODF in Brazil

Great news for ODF in Brazil: it's becoming the official format for storing government agency dox:

Já no passado mês de Abril de 2008, o ODF (Open Document Format) tinha sido adoptado como Norma Nacional no Brasil, mas agora sabemos por um comunicado da SERPRO que foi publicada a versão 4.0 dos Padrões de Interoperabilidade de Governo Electrónico (e-PING) que torna obrigatória a utilização do ODF na administração pública federal.

A nova versão publicada pela Secretaria de Logística e Tecnologia da Informação (SLTI) do Ministério do Planejamento adota o Open Document Format (ODF), como formato padrão para guarda e troca de documentos eletrônicos no governo federal.

...

Até a última versão da e-Ping o formato ODF constava com o status de recomendado pelo documento, sendo facultativo aos órgãos o uso, na versão 4.0 o ODF assume característica de adotado, dessa forma, torna-se obrigatório para todos os órgãos da administração direta, autarquias e fundações.


[Via Google Translate: Already in April 2008, the ODF (Open Document Format) had been adopted as national standard in Brazil, but now we know for a release of SERPRO which was published version 4.0 of the Standards for Interoperability of Electronic Government (E-PING ) That mandate the use of ODF in the public service federation.

The new version published by the Department of Logistics and Information Technology (SLTI) of the Ministry of Planning adopts the Open Document Format (odf), as a standard for safekeeping and exchange of electronic documents in the federal government.

...

Until the latest version of the e-Ping the format ODF was recommended to the status of the document, and voluntary bodies to use, version 4.0 in the ODF takes characteristic of adopted thus becomes mandatory for all government agencies direct, municipalities and foundations.]

As ever, Brazil's decision is doubly significant: important in itself, given the size of the country, and important as an example to others.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where is the link to the original article in Portuguese or in any other language?

Glyn Moody said...

The links are in the article:

http://blog.softwarelivre.sapo.pt/2009/01/02/e-ping-torna-odf-obrigatori-no-brasil/

and

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.softwarelivre.sapo.pt%2F2009%2F01%2F02%2Fe-ping-torna-odf-obrigatori-no-brasil%2F&sl=pt&tl=en

Anonymous said...

Good for Brazil! I read about the original decision a while back, but it's good to see it proceeding apace.

If all governments standardized on open document formats (wherever feasible), proprietary software would become a welcome possible option rather than a mandatory tax.

Let's hope we see other governments make similar decisions (this recession may prove useful for something after all ;)

Glyn Moody said...

@Roger: Absolutely - here's to more.