Promoting ODF (OpenDocument Format),ODF as draft Malaysian Standard goes for public comment
[Update 13 December 2006: Image with SIRIM logo removed]
It's out - the newspaper advertisement today from SIRIM giving notice of a list of draft Malaysian Standards for public comment, and one of them is ODF (OpenDocument Format)!
Excerpt:
"The public are invited to give their comments on the following draft Malaysian Standards. For draft Malaysian Standards, which are adopted without deviation from International Standards, they are available at the charges indicated. For draft Malaysian Standards with no charges, they can be downloaded from the web-site.
All comments must reach SIRIM Berhad not later than 31 October 2006."
ODF as a draft Malaysian Standard is indeed adopted without deviation from the International Standard ISO/IEC 26300. Remember that ODF became that in May 2006 after standards bodies of voting countries unanimously voted YES (no country voted NO) for ODF to become an International Standard. On 18 July 2006, the Technical Committee on E-Commerce (TC4) in SIRIM unanimously voted YES to propose ODF to become a Malaysian Standard. Prior to this public comment period, the SIRIM committee above TC4, ISC G (Industry Standards Committee G, i.e. for IT, Telecommunications and Multimedia) approved ODF to be proposed as a Malaysian Standard.
I said before the reasons why ODF should be a Malaysian Standard:
- national sovereignty
- the Malaysian government is very comfortable with ISO standards, so SIRIM has many times before adopted ISO standards as MS
- enables government bodies to cite the usage of an Malaysian Standard for the national document exchange format (instead of de facto standards)
- makes document exchange using ODF part of the national ICT agenda
After the 2-month public comment period, there will be a couple more steps within SIRIM and I anticipate that the final step of the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation signing off for ODF to be a Malaysian Standard will happen by the end of 2006.
[Update 11 September 2006: The notice for the public comment is available online at: http://www.sirim.my/std_dev/h4_01.htm
For ODF, click "Public Comment from 1st September 2006 until 31st October" on that web page, and see page 9 of the second document, "DRAFT MALAYSIAN STANDARDS FOR PUBLIC COMMENT (01-Sept-06 – 31-Oct-06)"]
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