The government has pledged its support for open standards and interoperability through its e-Government Interoperability Framework, but warned that there is no such thing as a document-storage panacea, according to The Register.
The statement forms part of Number 10's response to a petition calling on the government to promote the use of the OpenDocument Format in government.
An open standard for IT is publicly available, with various rights to use associated. It can be distinguished from open source, where the source code of software is made available with relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions.
More than 1,300 people signed the petition, which argued that the government should use open standards-based formats to properly future proof the documents they produce.
Petition author John Imrie wrote: "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."
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Broadly, the government's response is that it does champion open standards where possible, but that no single standard could ever solve the problem of storing multiple document formats.
Its statement reads: "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."
"It is reluctant, however, to commit to a single format, claiming that provides a universal solution for all types of digital information."
On future policy, the statement concludes: "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."
