Open source - Open mind
On presenting his new plan for information technology in Norway - "eNorge
2009 - the digital leap", Norwegian Minister of Modernization Morten
Andreas Meyer today at a press conference in Oslo declared "Proprietary
formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and
government." Taking great care not to mention the name Microsoft
directly, but rather referring to "the spreadsheet almost everyone use" or
saying this is the last time I will present a plan for information
technology being broadcast on the net in Windows Media, the Minister sent
strong signals in the direction of Redmond to open up or become irrelevant
to the Norwegian Government.
The Minister, as part of the plan, has charged all government
institutions, both at the national and local level, to by the end of 2005
have worked out a recommendation for the use of open source code in the
public sector. Further by the end of 2006 every body of the public sector
in Norway must have in place a plan for the use of open source code and
open standards.
The plan calls for a massive restructuring of Public sector in Norway
where digital communication between every citizen and government will
become the norm. Part of the plan is to provide every citizen with their
own "home page" for communication with government and for opening services
24/7 to the public. In the process every Norwegian citizen will be
provided with a personal electronic ID as a replacement for the numerous
user-ids and passwords currently used throughout.
The plan clearly favors Open Source communities and solutions, and Linux,
but will also favors Apple computer where increasingly open source
technologies and open standards are finding their way into the
historically proprietary Mac OS. It remains to be seen what response the
plan will prompt from Microsoft, who has been very reluctant to open up
its word processing, spreadsheet and media formats. Without support for
open standard formats, Microsoft will rapidly make itself irrelevant as
supplier to both public sector, businesses and private persons, as they
all have the need to communicate electronically with the government in the
future.
Also institutions and companies like the Norwegian Broadcasting
Corporation (NRK) and TV2 will be greatly affected by the new policies,
having based their Internet interactive TV and radio transmissions mainly
on Microsoft Media formats.
Of great interest to businesses, the Minister also announced that public
information, in the future, should be available free or significantly
cheaper than current practice. A move he hoped would pave the way for new
businesses taking advantage of this type of information
http://www.andwest.com/blojsom/blog/tatle/agenda/2005/06/27/Norwegian_Minister_Proprietary_Standards_No_Longer_Acceptable_in_Communication_with_Government.html
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