Danish parliament sets rules for open document formats

The Danish Parliament has decided on a set of rules to which open document formats must adhere if they are to be used by state authorities after April 1, 2011, Denmark's Liberal Party said on Friday.

The agreement isn't about restricting users to one office suite, or choosing between the ODF (OpenDocument Format) or OOXML (Office Open XML) standards. Rather, the Danish Parliament has agreed on the criteria that open document formats must meet, the Liberal Party said.

Approved formats must be recognized by an internationally known standards body such as the International Organization for Standardization, and they must be fully documented. It must be possible to implement the format on different computing platforms.

A panel of experts will now start working on list of which formats actually meet the criteria, and can approved for use by state authorities, according to the statement.

The Danes are pushing hard for the use of open standards, and the agreement will help solidify it as one of the world leaders in the field, the Liberal Party said.