German Foreign Office Comes Out in Favor of Open Document Format

“At the first international workshop of users of the Open
Document Format (ODF) in Berlin to which the Foreign Office of the
Federal Republic had invited about 150 users and political
observers, Brazil and India, in addition to German cities such as
Munich, emerged as leading proponents of open standards in the
office area. Brazil was making ‘intensive use’ of free software,
Deivi Kuhn of Serpro, a company founded at the behest of the
Brazilian government, which coordinates the use of open source in
the up-and-coming developing nation, declared. The ODF standard
adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
was mandatory when it came to state interoperability standards for
e-government, he observed. It was a good tool for securing user
freedoms and access to knowledge, he added.

“The development in India was happening along similar lines, M K
Yadava of the IT development company Amtron from the federal state
of Assam pointed out…”

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