A high ranking French government official has called for open standards for software to be adopted by all European countries.
In a report to the French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, National Assembly deputy Bernard Carayon said that the adoption of standards to guarantee interoperability was essential to promote European business and competition.
"To counter the risk of the impoverishment of IT because of the practices of some large world actors, it is important that we propose that our European partners adopt the principle of interoperability as regards data processing, to guarantee the development — even, in certain sectors, the survival — of the European IT industry," said Carayon.
The French Government has not yet responded to Carayon's report.
In the report, Carayon claimed that Europe was totally dependent on technologies developed and owned by American companies, which was insupportable in the long term.
Carayon recommended that both the French Government and European member states should adopt open standards for data processing, according to Carayon. The Open Document Format would encourage "freedom of choice and a better quality of product", in "an environment favourable to free, undistorted competition", Carayon said.
OpenDocument Format for Office Applications (ODF) is an open standard, published by OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), for office software to save documents such as spreadsheets, databases and text, and to exchange information. It was approved as an ISO standard in May, which Carayon said was a guarantee that it could be safely be used by governments for data processing.
OASIS works towards the development and implementation of open, interoperable standards.
Donald Harbison of IBM, speaking to ZDNet UK in his role as co-chair of the OASIS ODF Adoption Committee, said that governments around the world should contemplate adopting open standards.
Although the ODF Adoption Committee had not spoken with the French Government specifically about Carayon's report, Harbison said governments should consider open standards to encourage flexibility, interoperability, and cost effectiveness.
"Open standards ensure flexibility for government information technology solutions and infrastructure, increasing technology options for citizens and users," said Harbison. "Implementers can easily configure information systems and procure technology from a wide variety of vendors at best value price points, helping [IT professionals] to adapt to ever-changing requirements and procedures."
Carayon's report can be read here, in French.
Talkback
It's far more than the IT sector, the entire EU economy benefits from open standards.
Why focus on just the IT sector? It's fun, but it's small. Let's bring this into perspective. There rest of the economy, despite being outside the IT sector, is nonetheless fully dependent on software and data standards.
So the corrected statement should be,
"we propose that our European partners adopt the principle of interoperability as regards data processing, to guarantee the development — even, in certain sectors, the survival — of European industry."
it's ( standardisation and organisations)
http://philipdavidson.blogspot.com/
Dare I say: "essential to Europe's future is not to be governed or controled by any outside entity which likely has its own (hidden) agenda to meet"?
On paper the European Union might be the largest economic consumer force currently. But on the outside it certainly doesn't look that way. Looks more like apples ready for the taking. Keep that attitude up for a couple of more years and then it certainly will be reality. And most likely stay that way because others will have learned from our mistakes by then and thus will not be likely to repeat them.
"Given how much energy it takes to become, be and stay the underdog one has to wonder what kind of (brain) power is required to transform such vast amounts of energy into so much waste."
Something doesn't add up here. It's almost as if we want to. Or wants us to.
We've been here many times before X/Open OSI POSIX X400 Open group, the list goes on.
Proprietary suppliers such as Microsoft then decide which of these standards they accept and which they deem inappropriate because they wish to impose their own a de facto standard. Even when they appear to accept a standard they, over time, often impose a prorietary superset of features -for the benefit of its own customers.
When government's or companies take on open standards they always face an ongoing campaign against such decisions because they take business away from those suppliers offering a proprietary solution. they claim open standards "restrict choice" or "impose the lowest common denominator" "fail to move with technological developments" or "are less secure" etc.
When IBM was deemed to be a monopolist their loby against open standards was not aimed at the techical team of companies or govenment but at the managemnet. The phrase used to be, "dare you rrisk your company by not buying IBM". Microsoft seem to sell the same sort of message to the same sort of people.
Long term it does not matter that technical staff believe in open standards. They will only happen when non technical business managers understand their benefits or see through the snake oil salespersons.