 with you about how to enforce open standards and as you probably know it, that is one of the issues, especially the accessibility to documents in the future or to be exact, accessibility to documents that were written in the past. Sometimes this issue is actually a feature and there are cases you probably don't want your documents to be readable in the future. This might be one of the cases. But this case is usually a bug and wants a feature. And for most documents we actually want them to be readable. This is an article from a scientific American where the author does follow up to another article he wrote. And here he talks about the world situation is especially bizarre. Microsoft is a curator of the world's common world processing format, which for our scientists is true. You take their field with some obligation to maintain its ability to open its own documents no matter how old. This is especially true for relatively very long formats, even if you talked about something 20 years ago, 15 years ago, which is very problematic, but to a certain degree it's also true for relatively recent formats. This is a page from Microsoft's support website for Office where he talks about what doesn't work when you try to open world 2010 documents in Office 2007. So some features doesn't work. It's okay to have numbers converted between different numbering systems, like alphabets in different languages to numbers and stuff like that. It's not pleasant, but you don't use content. But in some features they are generally right removed, which means what? You lose the content. If you save it, you save it with other content. What happens when you reopen it in a later version? There are some very weird effects about it. And I'm still not talking about interoperability with other programs. These are only programs by Microsoft. So one of the common problems in both cases about this is that, at least for Microsoft, there is almost one-to-one ratio between Microsoft's version and the document format. For a lot of time we had each version created new format for the binaries. It added new features and you must use that version in order to open the binaries, obviously creating backward compatibility issues and forward compatibility issues or security issues. And our obvious goal is to have one-to-standard rule involved or actually to separate with the idea of the software from the standard. And this is just a short list of available office suits or work-processing options. We have two from Microsoft, one from Google and one from Apple. Only office work-processed, which used to be very active two decades ago, but it's alive. I found out office suits and calibrations. What about standards? There is an issue of adaptation and the level of adaptation. Some countries say that ODF is allowed, which means they actually recognize the standard that exists. Some of the office suits are already improved by ISO and other standardization organizations. But allowed means we know it exists, you can use it, we wouldn't say you can't, but that's it. You're not required to do that. In some cases it doesn't even mean you must have the ability to read it. So some governments, if you send them ODF, they say, well, I don't have to support it, it's not a requirement for me. So send it to me in a different format. So allowed is usually nice to have. Then we're talking about some government which says must be able to read. So if a civilian or a company sends them a document in ODF format, the list must be able to read. They don't have to send a reply back in that format, but that's a good case. In some other governments it's a recommended standard or a recommended solution. But for a lot of people when you think of day-to-day when someone says to you, this is a recommended response, you think, OK, I should do that. With a lot of government's recommend is just another way to say nice to have, but it's a little bit more than must be able to read. In some cases governments have some levels recommended, like just recommended, highly recommended, and some different phrasing I encountered, which is sometimes weird because you might have only two solutions, both of them are recommended. So what's the point of adding the adjective? In other countries there's an issue, is it the only standard or there's more than one option? Like some countries must be able to read ODF and OOXML, but there's no guidance about what is the default when they send information on grades, and this is also an important issue. Is there a default to stuff like one government might say, well, our default is all here, if you have a specific use, we might allow OXML, or when we go to a procurement process it must support both of them, but we don't care what's the default. It's very delicate issues of policy, but their effect in real life is important because you define the guidelines, but some IT guide will actually use that for his own benefit to do what is easier or much more preferable in his opinion, and sometimes the language is very important because it narrows his options or forcing to apply the policy. In some countries there's a talk about PDF, in most cases PDFA, is it possible? Is it possible in general? Can the government say, well, I'm sending online documents in PDF and you shouldn't care with which program they created it? Does it mean there is no editable version of the documents? What happens when you want to exchange document and actually have comments from someone else in the document, not just in email as well? This is my opinion about the subject. Some government says, well, you must use the whole PDF and you can or allow to use PDF or non-editable documents. For example, if you want a press release that's usually non-editable, so OX edited PDF that's fine. If you want a working document or something to be shared with some others, you must use the whole PDF. And of course, usually the highest level, unless somebody added some interesting tricks into the language, required or must is the best level. Notice that in some cases there are more than one issue for required must and then there's another way to look. So in some cases you see there's must in a few options, which actually means it's, let's say, allow or recommend it and it's taking out of context. A quick survey of what countries have ODF as a mandatory standard it's standard for four countries, which is very weird. I don't know if this is as well the computer, so you might correct me during the presentation. But from what I've found there's only four countries which only have ODF as mandatory. There's no mentioning about OXML and they might use PDF, but only for non-editable. So we were talking about Denmark, Malaysia, Portugal and Venezuela. For Venezuela, I didn't find the year it was announced. And there is some other countries. I mean, it's mentioned as mandatory, but no one in those countries respects the law. Okay, so that is... I probably have to amend that slide. Actually... All of which is enforced and not only written. Actually, it's also Italy in 2013 mentioned ODF as a preferred format but everyone is ignoring it at all, completely. So preferred is one of the languages I found recommended. But there's a... It's very political. Yes, exactly. Between preferred and must, a wonderful way of whatever phrasing. So here you see, just a second, here you see the phrasing sounds completely different to our ears, like we said. Yes, it's preferred, it's perfect. No, it's a tragedy preferred. I know. To our ears it might sound great, just a second. And when the policy, the guidance actually has to fulfill the policy to him it sounds completely different. You had a question? Yeah, just a comment on that. Dana, you should be back then. But you ended up with it all. Due to all of the other external recommendations, so many means nothing. Okay, I didn't know. And in addition, what is a pity in all of this is that there's no rationale behind the decision. So it's no one... And this is very bad because there's no education about what a standard format is and the value of a standard format. So it's a kind of... You should use that but for no reason. So this of course to people says... It's hard to replicate that. Yeah, I can use the one that I prefer because if there's no reason for using that one then I can use whatever I want. Great question. 2015. We requested it only as the technical office format. Nevertheless, they choose myself as a presentation. This was a lot. But while I agree with the satellites, I believe the governments are not... I'm not sure that they will follow the rules. Great question. So to my knowledge there was a discussion, but there isn't... No, no, UK that is a low. There's no... Yeah, absolutely. It's July 22, 2014. Okay. I was at the Oscon opening session. It was announced during that session. No one cared about it. Absolutely. But the fact that you don't find evidence is... I think it's a... It's directly to the... It's a confirmation of the fact that there's no real interest behind standards. So I go into the next slide and that's how to increase adaptation. And obviously that's the $1 million question. At least that's the term in the U.S. maybe Europe has a different phrasing of that sentence. But one of the questions is who is actually responsible for that policy? Is it the government or ICT authority? Is it another agency inside the government? It's like the government. Some government has different agencies or different ways to share their responsibility. Such a policy might come, let's say, from the Ministry of Education because they have to deal with a lot of students or a lot of documents created for the educational process. It might be coming from the Ministry of Health because they have some of these issues, especially with medical records. They might be coming from, I don't know, commerce because the fact of the standard might really affect how commerce is being done or would rather it's a regulation in some places it might come from antitrust agencies because they want to talk about competition. The other question sometimes it's not a policy that comes from the government itself. It might come from the parliament. And in some cases it might be a committee regarding ICT, a committee regarding science. Each country has its own terms. And another question from our side. Do we use lobbies? Do we use volunteers? Yesterday we had a talk over dinner about the use of lobbies. Commercial companies use them all the time. Open source associations use them rarely. Sometimes because of how things are done in the open source world. Sometimes because of budgeting issues. And sometimes because our perspective to a lot of these issues is more technical than political. And it's a completely different point of view. There's a difference between proving to someone this is a better solution than actually making it to adulthood. And another thing about that is sometimes in a lot of times we see stuff which are not the best technical solution get adopted because of political reasons. And there is probably a need for us also to have that angle and not only the technical level. Because as we see in various lectures we're very technical and we refer to that and try to beat the competition on that level but not on other levels. In some cases there are other institutions that might be relevant like National Archives especially as they're the organizations which actually encountered a problem today and for them it's a burning issue or very urgent because if you ask them to for a document from 30 years ago the probability they can actually give you the content of the file is today I think almost zero unless they have a printed version they can scan, they can do OCR or they can save the computers with all versions of the software and they hate to see whatever governmental institution wins award six on Windows 95 and it might be able to open files that sounds a little bit weird but it might be the only option. Another thing which is mentioned when you search about ODF is multinational organizations one of the most famous search results about it it's NATO that requires ODF as standard for all its countries and then you see the list of about around 20 countries and you think well it's 7, it's perfect half of Europe, some places in the Balkans or Eastern Europe and then you understand there's no way to enforce this standard on the government so yes there might be a few computers that has whatever software just for in general communication in NATO or as Italian said it might be not a policy which is enforced but do these bodies anyway have the ability to enforce any policy or just a written letter which is actually a dead letter we're about two thirds of the presentation and while writing the presentation I have more questions than answers because it's a different process in each country in countries which are more technical, less technical some countries have a better political figure behind the ICQ authority which might move things faster but in the end I was left with more questions than answers and for that I would be happy to have to give your comments or your experience or how is it done in your countries because from next week I'm actually going to be in Israel after writing an article for the newspaper about LibreOffice and open standards trying to take advantage of the reconciliation of the deal between the government and Microsoft about Microsoft Office and I'm trying to put let's say it is a wage or a foot in the door in that wall and there's a lot of knowledge to be shared between the countries if anyone has any experience or knowledge of what has been done in this country I would like to use the rest of the time which is about 10 minutes for that your ideas and experience please yes first point could you just say your name and where you're from because the camera is on me not on you oh yeah sure Daniel from Sweden work for the Swedish government my experience doing this for quite many years is that most people that isn't from immune strategies or healthcare or healthcare government they have no idea what a normal is they have no idea what a standard is and they don't care they conflict an application and a file they have no idea it's like just a piece I start work and it stays a work thingy sort of so going into having some of the discussion before we have the different promises there's no one there there's no one to talk to the National Archives I would say there's no one there no one home to talk to because they're not taking care of people because they have no knowledge okay and they just see data it's just a document and if you come along with something else here's your documents you can open the document and if there's something wrong with it then it's your fault it's not the format or the application you created it it's always the receiver's format or important so what I'm sort of discussing right now my view of it is trying to you have to go the route of like technical like technically I see the office of mine as a really major deep breaker of getting in because if you're used to Microsoft Office installed on a train it works in a certain way if you can come and say hey, you're working this way and you don't print stuff and you can do coloration and by the way at OVF and they say well, I'm okay I like this nice feature that I can do coloration the condition there is of course Office 365 but for a lot of governments it's unlawful to use they would realize at least over time they would realize that a lot of laws get broken in your European country of using Office 365 or Google or whatever cloud services but that's another issue the question is when they download the document from it doesn't matter if it's LibreOffice Online or Office 365 and they want to edit it locally which happens the person who would complain that it doesn't produce a Microsoft Word binary or there are other issues the other thing the other thing is that there's some kind of bias towards a lot of times sometimes open source sometimes just new software that I found out that when someone have a feature or something doesn't work for him in Microsoft Office it's like just it's an act of God like okay it doesn't work it's okay I understand that but if it's a different program or open source it's your fault it's the problem for you there's a tolerance for problems goes almost to zero and that's one of the other issues we need to deal with and that's regardless of the talk about open standards someone else thank you very much so from my experience it's very hard to combine between similar to what you said there's nobody home regardless of the technical level and on the other side of the scale it's the politics of it like if there is a way to get a deal from a company they don't care what they actually get so they don't check the details they just okay we'll pay money we'll get their solution we don't check we don't care and sometimes the problem is the don't care part if they check and decide this is better and let's say they do it every few years it's reasonable we might not agree with the result but it's reasonable because they need to check but in most cases they don't consider any alternative I think in Europe the situation is better because the language support is more native in other countries language support let's say it's RTL, CGK it's another issue or a barrier to live over this is one of the things I know I need to to deal with is that when I offer a new office they say well, doesn't support you? that the actual responses obviously does and it's actually very good it's not perfect but very good but then we we have other issues some issues might be how the program looks which is totally different than ODIF but for that we might have other solutions if we I don't know find a way to work with Google on standardization maybe we'll have a better chance because that's the levels the playing field for us and for them maybe governments we're we're willing to buy solutions which combine edit editing services on the cloud we're living along other privacy issues and then offline solutions from the office and then trying to enjoy both roles okay whenever an office online is ready and good enough let's do that on the other thing in some cases we need strong enough companies first to promote the standards then on the other hand promote the products because in a lot of cases although we see some companies in the conference their their solution of governments is not necessarily very well known or it's not a solution that everyone promotes there's a difference between branded by company branded solutions which is fine we can talk with each of our sponsors conference for that and having said that Libra is online as a community option is great and then you can buy support from them there's a big difference and I think at least from my experience with other things regarding open source we need a big commercial company to do some of the heavy lifting at least for Israel we had a few issues with standards regarding websites and web development there used to be two standards to display Hebrew in websites I'm talking about mid 90s to early 2000s and whenever enough companies changed or some big company came that was the big change a new browser brought a change Google forced standardization that Firefox already had but didn't have enough power to create and that's included both Firefox and Opera in other cases a lot of things change into adaptation to mobile websites and alignment of standards when people had iPhone in a different browser on the phone than they had on their PC because they use internet explorer and it's crooked standards and then suddenly they have a different web browser and then companies understood they need to act differently I think we might find a different solution towards that with cooperation with commercial companies Israel you had a call? No, it's cool so your time is over, sorry So thank you very much if you have other corrections or questions I didn't want to kill you but That's okay If you have any comments or corrections to my slides please contact me afterwards I'll be happy to amend them before I come Thank you very much Thank you What are you doing to set up our answer question? The slides which is just on my Q&A already Could you also provide links to the standard delivery and maybe include them in the PDF So most of the here is actually the base is the the wiki page and when the comment on that the wiki page gets updated I had also some research related to this wiki page pretty much on the German situation and it had a project to edit words so this is not necessary at all Okay, so you set up the German version of the page? Well the German version of the page, especially I made a page to the Soviet adoption in Germany and there's not much left Okay, but just to make sure I understand the section of German in the English page or you just edited the German article of the page? I edited the English and the German one Okay Warriors on the other side were also required Thank you very much I wouldn't say this more this time