Number 10 Goes to Digistan

Well, not exactly, but that's we were asking for in an e-petition:

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to adopt the Hague Declaration of the Digital Standards Organisation.”

Details of Petition:

“We call on the UK government to: (1) Procure only information technology that implements free and open standards; (2) Deliver e-government services based exclusively on free and open standards; (3) Use only free and open digital standards in their own activities. as adopted and proclaimed by the founders of the Digital Standards Organization in The Hague on 21 May 2008.”

And this is what that nice Mr Brown replied:

The UK Government champions open standards and interoperability through its eGovernment Interoperability Framework Version 6.0, 30th April 2004 (eGIF) and through the publication of its Open Source Software Policy which is available in the document “Open Source Software, Use within UK Government, Version 2.0, 28 October 2004”.

This and eGIF are available from www.govtalk.gov.uk. Where possible the Government only uses products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

So there you go.

10 Downing Street Talks Document Formats

Responsible citizen that I am, I signed an e-petition asking that nice Mr Blair to support ODF:

Government documents must be available for tens if not hundreds of years. Currently much electronic documentation is stored in proprietary formats, such as Microsoft's .doc format. In order to allow future generations access to these documents it is imperative that they be in a fully documented standard. Open Document Format (ISO/IEC 26300:2006) is now the international document standard and as such should be supported by the Government.

And here's what he (or just possibly one of his minions) said :

The UK Government champions open standards and interoperability through its e Government Interoperability Framework (eGIF). Where possible the Government only uses products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

Interoperability and open standards also support the sustainability of digital information beyond any single generation of technology. New techniques for digital preservation being developed by The National Archives require the periodic transformation of digital information to new formats as technology changes. Such transformations will be simplified by the adoption of open standards.

No single format provides a universal solution for all types of digital information, and The National Archives therefore actively monitors and evaluates a wide range of existing and emerging formats (including OpenDocument Format). A policy on digital preservation, which includes guidance on the selection of sustainable data formats based on open standards, is being formulated by The National Archives, and will help define the standards for desktop systems. The National Archives technical registry 'PRONOM' (new window) supports this through the provision of key information about the most widely-used formats.

So there we have it.