http://www.epractice.eu/document/4198 * As from 1 January 2008, it will be mandatory for all Danish public authorities to use open standards for software. This is the outcome of the agreement that was recently reached between the Danish Government, Local Government Denmark and the association of Danish Regions. Denmark is the first country to mandate the use of open standards across both national, regional and local levels of government.[...] *The agreement secures that from 1 January 2008 all public authorities - national, regional and local - must use seven sets of open standards in all new IT solutions, unless it will significantly increase the costs of the project. Moreover, all authorities must be able to receive office documents in two open document standards - namely ODF and OOXML. This allows citizens to communicate with government using open standards.[..] The seven sets of open standards that will be made mandatory for all new public IT solutions are as follows: - Standards for data interchange between public authorities; - Standards for electronic file and document handling; - Standards for exchanging documents between public authorities (Open Document Format and Office OpenXML); - Standards for electronic procurement in the public sector; - Standards for digital signatures; - Standards for public websites / homepages and eAccessibility; - Standards for IT Security (only within the state sector). The openness of a standard implies that: - the standard must be fully documented and publicly available; - the standard must be freely implementable without economic, political or legal constraints on its implementation and use, now or in the future; and - the standard should be managed and maintained in an open forum via an open process (standardisation organisation). -- Asteris Masouras Software Engineer - Translator http://oneiros.gr/blog GPG public key ID: 0x0AE9A362 Digital rights in Greece: http://digitalrights.gr "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes" -- Juvenal (ca. 60 to 130 AD), Sat. 6, 347