Germany's Sovereign Digital Stack Mandates ODF: a Landmark Validation of Open Document Standards - TDF Community Blog
blog.documentfoundation.org
The Document Foundation (TDF), the non-profit entity behind LibreOffice, welcomes the inclusion of the Open Document Format (ODF) as a mandated standard format in Germany’s Deutschland-Stack, the federal government’s sovereign digital infrastructure framework for all public administrations. The Stack, published by the German Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernisation (Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung), establishes the technical standards for a shared, interoperable and sovereign digital infrastructure serving all Germany’s public administrations. Under the framework’s “Semantic Technologies and Real-Time Analytics” pillar, ODF and PDF/UA are explicitly named as the two mandated document formats, to the exclusion of proprietary alternatives. “This is not a recommendation or a preference, it is a mandate,” said Florian Effenberger, Executive Director of The Document Foundation. “Germany’s decision to anchor ODF at the heart of its national sovereign stack confirms what we have argued for years: open, vendor-neutral document formats are not a niche concern for some technology specialists and FOSS advocates. They are a fundamental infrastructure for democratic, interoperable and sovereign public administrations.” The Deutschland-Stack is grounded in a set of principles that align with TDF’s long-standing advocacy positions. The framework adopts a “Made in EU first” principle, requires open interfaces and local data storage,
  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.orgEnglish
    14·
    2 days ago

    ODF and PDF/UA are explicitly named as the two mandated document formats, to the exclusion of proprietary alternatives.

    Mandatory is nice, but nowhere could I find the information:

    For whom, and for what, and when?

  • ByteJunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    An absolute tangent, but why are certain worlds in German “glued togetht”?

    “Bundesministerium für Digitales und Staatsmodernisierung”

    Isn’t this for “digital and state modernization”? Like, modernization applies to both, right? Why is one merged together but not the other?

    • aradazer@feddit.orgEnglish
      8·
      1 day ago

      No, modernization only applies to Staatsmodernisierung. Otherwise you’d say something like Digital- und Staatsmodernisierung. But that would make little sense as Digitalmodernisierung would mean that we already have all the necessary digital processes but they are old and need an overhaul.

      A rough translation of Digitales on the other hand would be “things that are digital”, which implies that it also includes improving digital processes.

      • ByteJunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 day ago

        Makes sense, got it. So if it applied to both words, the way you’d signal that is by hyphenating the previous word?

        Seems so strange to just have a hyphen lying there in the middle of a phrase, but that’s just my lack of familiarity.

        • aradazer@feddit.orgEnglish
          4·
          1 day ago

          Yes exactly! Like for example Hoch- und Tiefbau. You could still write it out: Hochbau und Tiefbau. But to me that just sounds redundant.

  • broom@piefed.socialEnglish
    31·
    2 days ago

    That’s a big one and the Netherlands, Portugal, Norway and the UK apparently already do. In no time it will be mandatory in all EU countries.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      1 day ago

      My kids’ public school is full microslop - outlook branded emails, meetings via teams, .docx files, SharePoint document sharing 🤮

      I love the initiative, but in reality we’re very far away.

    • zout@fedia.io
      14·
      2 days ago

      The Netherlands seems to have it mandatory since 2009, but I’ve never seen it used. My wife works for the municipality, and she has never heard of it either.

        • Tuuktuuk@nord.pubEnglish
          4·
          2 days ago

          I understood this as meaning that the file format must be supported by all government institutions. And it probably is supported. Up to a point. Because Microslop has a very bad-quality odf support in Word. Meaning: The support exists. It might not be able to read or save simple odf files that could be opened with anything else than Word, but the support exists all the same. Law fulfilled, all is good!

        • zout@fedia.io
          2·
          2 days ago

          It’s probably hardly enforced or even brought to the attention of people.

  • atro_city@fedia.io
    23·
    2 days ago

    Now they just have to stick to it. The European Commission agreed to using ODF nearly a decade ago if memory serves and it has been very bad at it. Given that ODF is also maintained by Microslop in OASIS, I think they will continue to sabotage it so that they will generate incompatible versions with their shitty 360 crap.