DK: Majority in parliament for use of ODF and OOXML-strict

Sander on Wednesday asked the ministry of Finance for an estimate of the costs of using ODF. The parliament says it wants this estimate to be backed-up with case studies of existing public administrations using ODF. If the report takes too long, parliament could decide to take a vote on the Danish policy for open document formats.

This is the outcome of a meeting that took place last Wednesday between the IT specialists in the Danish parliament and the Science Minister.

Yildiz Akdogan, IT spokesperson for the Social Democratic opposition party: "The minister was not very open to our suggestion to use both ODF and the strict version of OOXML. With his request to the ministry of Finance he has once again postponed the decision."

According to Akdogan, the parliament is willing to give minister Sanders some time to research the possible costs of a move to ODF. However, she adds, she knows of no case studies that would prove that moving to ODF would lead to higher costs. "We sorely miss that kind of research, that is one reason I earlier have suggested to organise a conference on this."

"The one thing that we definitively don't want, is to force municipalities and other government bodies to use document formats that can't work together."

Phone calls and emails to the ministry of Science seeking comments were not immediately answered.



Case studies

In the business section of the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende, an article published last Wednesday, cited three international cases showing that replacing proprietary software by open source alternatives will result in significant savings. The newspaper cites the Swedish Police, the French Gendarmerie and the Finish ministry of Justice. All three of these are covered in case studies and news items by the European Commission's Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR).

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