Open Standards
From OpenEGov
There is a universal consensus that government software at all levels should make use of open standards. This is necessary for interoperability between citizens and government, between government departments, and between governments across the EU. It is also necessary to avoid supplier lock-in, where only one company's software can read stored data, and to allow data persistence with data that may need to be archived and accessed over long periods.
Within the UK the government requires adherence to eGIF (there are equivalent and similar standards elsewhere, such as the German SAGA). But eGIF does not exhaust the need for open standards. Nor does simply using XML as data format - an XML based data format can be as closed as any other type of format. A general definition of open standards is needed.
The current definition of an open standard accepted by the EU is:
- The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc).
- The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissable to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
- The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available available on a royalty-free basis.
- There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard
This definition is embedded in the document European Interoperability Framework produced by IDA. The definition is the subject of intense political manoeuvering by the major proprietary software producers (in particular, IBM, Microsoft and Sun). An alternative view aligned with the position of at least part of the free software movement comes from the Open Standards Alliance, whose position was summarised after their founding conference.
Another discussion of the problems involved in creating a definition of Open Standards was generated by the Danish government.
In France, the legal definition of an open standard is given by the Law of 24 June 2004 On Confidence in the Digital Economy ('Pour la confiance dans l'economie numerique'), article 4:
By open standard is understood any protocol for communications, networking or data exchange and all data formats which are interoperable and for which the technical specifications are public with no restriction on access or implementation. On entend par standard ouvert tout protocole de communication, d'interconnexion ou d'échange et tout format de données interopérable et dont les spécifications techniques sont publiques et sans restriction d'accès ni de mise en oeuvre.
Open standards can be implemented by both free and proprietary software. One example of the latter is the standardisation of the Open Office format through OASIS initiated by Sun and with the co-operation of IBM, while Microsoft have agreed to move towards making their WordML Document specifications more open in future. However, it is generally agreed that there is a closer natural fit between free software and open standards (for example, one common definition of an open standard requires that an open source reference implementation be available). In addition, the economic pressure on proprietary software companies is to deviate slightly from standards in order to create lock-in, while the pressure on free software developers is to adopt open standards wherever possible in order to increase take-up.
The IDA Framework document therefore recommends:
OSS (Open Source Software) products are, by their nature, publicly available specifications, and the availability of their source code promotes open, democratic debate around the specifications, making them both more robust and interoperable. As such, OSS corresponds to the objectives of this Framework and should be assessed and considered favourably alongside proprietary alternatives.
Specific Standards
The list of standards is huge; not all are maintained, and some are effectively 'abandonware' some of the same criteria apply in selecting standards as apply in selecting open source packages. One attempt at keeping a list of recommended standards is Canos, run by OSSOS for the Dutch government.
The most important new standard in the European and UK context is the Open Document format, which is working its way through approval by OASIS following recommendations from the Valoris Open Document format assessment. The history behind this is documented in a story on Groklaw.
UK-specific Standards
- Govtalk - Information on policies and standards for e-government, including:
