78 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
78 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
|
|
<html newsdate="2010-08-03">
|
|
<version>1</version>
|
|
|
|
<head>
|
|
<title>German ministries flout IT open interoperability requirements</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<h1>German ministries flout IT open interoperability requirements</h1>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Survey finds only 2 of 87 departments are conforming to federal open
|
|
document regulations</h2>
|
|
|
|
<p>Research published this week suggests that the majority of
|
|
federal government departments in Germany are ignoring requirements to
|
|
implement <a href="/freesoftware/standards/def.html">Open Standards</a>.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>A survey was conducted by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to
|
|
investigate the state of government adoption of ODF, and to promote wider
|
|
uptake of Open Standards. "Although federal policy has wisely embraced Open
|
|
Standards for interoperability, accessibility and security, it is clear that
|
|
most government bodies are still using inefficient proprietary formats" said
|
|
Karsten Gerloff, President of FSFE. "Ultimately citizens will end up paying the
|
|
price for this lack of conformity through higher bills for public IT contracts,
|
|
and slower services due to interoperability problems" he added. "They will also
|
|
pay a price in freedom, as they are forced to use proprietary software and
|
|
standards to communicate with government authorities."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Since the beginning of 2010, the German Information Technology Council (Rat der
|
|
IT-Beauftragten) has required state departments to support Open Document Format
|
|
(ODF) in order to communicate with the growing number of individuals and
|
|
organisations that use it. The policy, which is based upon the findings of the
|
|
Inter-Ministerial Coordination Committee - a panel of experts from the federal
|
|
administration, requires that departments have the capacity to read, write and
|
|
send ODF files.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>When 87 letters were sent to the ministries challenging them to demonstrate
|
|
their conformance by replying in the open format, only two of them replied in
|
|
ODF as requested. The Chancellor's Office and the Ministry of Food, Agriculture
|
|
and Consumer Protection (BMELV) were the sole respondents to use the correct
|
|
format. Five other federal bodies responded: all of whom underlined the
|
|
importance of Open Standards to them. Despite claiming that they were ODF
|
|
capable however, instead used other non-ODF formats for their response.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Usage of ODF continues to grow in public institutions throughout the world, and
|
|
is already officially approved in ten separate national standards
|
|
organisations, in addition to being the mandatory standard for communication
|
|
between NATO's 26 member states. "The Chancellor's Office and BMELV have set an
|
|
example for Open Standards in public administration" concluded Matthias
|
|
Kirschner, German Coordinator of FSFE, "but overall there is clearly a long way
|
|
to go before practice meets policy for ODF in the German public sector".</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>FSFE shall continue to monitor ODF uptake in order to ensure the protection of
|
|
German citizens' right to communicate using Free Software.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>The seven bodies that participated in the survey were:</p>
|
|
|
|
<ol>
|
|
<li>Bundeskanzleramt (The Chancellor's Office)</li>
|
|
<li>Bundesministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz (BMELV)</li>
|
|
<li>Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) Bundesforschungsinstitut für Kulturpflanzen</li>
|
|
<li>Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung</li>
|
|
<li>Bundesministerium des Innern</li>
|
|
<li>Bundespräsidialamt</li>
|
|
<li>Der Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit</li>
|
|
</ol>
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
|
|
<tags>
|
|
<tag key="front-page"/>
|
|
<tag key="dfd">Document Freedom Day</tag>
|
|
<tag key="openstandards">Open Standards</tag>
|
|
<tag key="policy"/>
|
|
<tag key="public-administration">Public Administration</tag>
|
|
</tags>
|
|
</html>
|