South Africa Adopts ODF as a National Standard

South Africa has taken major steps in recognising ODF as a national and government standard.

Back in October 2007, it was announced that South Africa mandated that ODF (ISO/IEC 26300) would be in the Minimum Interoperability Standards for Information Systems in government (MIOS).

The plan then was to have all government departments to view ODF documents by March 2008, all published government documents to be in ODF or non-proprietary formats by end of 2008, all internal government documents by March 2009 and finally a conversion of legacy documents to ODF or non proprietary formats.

So now, the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) approved ODF as a national standard to make ODF as a standard more visible and accessible to South African citizens. The latest update:

Aslam Raffee, chief information officer at DST (Department of Science and Technology), says that the deadlines for ODF adoption in government have already been set and are underway. The initial deadline was March this year for government department to be able to read documents in ODF format. By September it is expected that all departments will be able to read and write in the Open Document Format. Finally, in 2009, ODF will become the default document format for South African government departments.

Raffee says this process is progressing well and at this point “citizens should be able to send documents in Open Document Format to departments”

What is significant is that South Africa was one of the countries which voted "Disapprove" OOXML consistently as an abnormal candidate for the "Fast Track" process. Its concerns against OOXML is reiterated in SABS final comments submitted to ISO:

The overwhelming majority view of the South African committee is that the scope of the overlap between the proposed standard and the existing ISO/IEC 26300 standard is significant.  A significant majority view is that South Africa sees no benefit in adopting another standard for document formats in this area.

If Microsoft thinks it can now inject its immature OOXML as an alternative format in South Africa's MIOS, they certainly are facing an uphill battle. SABS and DST will undoubtedly expect to hear a lot of whinging about "choice" and "market forces" lobbied at certain Ministerial Departments. Will CompTIA and ISC please step up?

This goes to show that certain Ministries of Science and Technology can stand up for the interests of their citizens, and not have to feel pressured by a single foreign multinational. If only this independence was more prevalent around the world.

yk.

Comments

[Matthew]

Can you post a source for the SABS quote?

[yoonkit]

Hi Matthew,

> Can you post a source for the SABS quote?

If you mean the Comments submitted by SABS, it is included in a zip file with all the NB comments submitted with the March vote.

Tried to look for it online, but can't at the moment.

yk.