Germany has just made the standard Open Document Format (ODF) mandatory
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/03/19/germanys-sovereign-digital-stack-mandates-odf
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/03/19/germanys-sovereign-digital-stack-mandates-odf
28 Comments
ruplicant@sh.itjust.works · 151 pts · 154d
good!
I'm gonna repeat this, as expressed here, to a few people
S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 41 pts · 153d
As a guy who worked with property recods in US fucking yes. Some states gove the records in a closed format invented by one company. So you have to have their software if you want to work in some states.
Add it to the pile of illegal shit that is legal I guess...
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 153d
I've heard building codes can be just as bad, some places the law just says to follow a book and you have to pay some company like $300 to get the book and license things
Freakazoid@lemmy.ml · 84 pts · 154d
Hopefully the rest of Europe will follow.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 38 pts · 154d
Oddly the UK is somehow ahead here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-open-document-formats-odf-in-your-organisation
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 27 pts · 153d
Despite being so shit in many different respects (a chronic use of external consultants and contractors means the UK seems less likely than other European countries to make progress on a sovereign tech stack), the UK is pretty good with its data. There's a surprisingly amount of data that's released and is in a sensible format.
During the teachers strikes last year, I ended up using playing around making visualisations using the data about the number of teachers in various parts of the country, and I was pleased to see how much there was there and how clearly it was documented. There are very few things I'm proud of the UK for, so I am glad to have this as one
SlurpingPus@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 153d
The UK seemingly got some cool nerds in the government: the gov.uk sites were regarded as the golden standard of design and accessibility in the 2010s, idk about currently. Commercial designers straight up studied gov.uk's design guidelines to see how a job like that should be done.
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 153d
Yeah, I knew that, it's super cool, and it came to mind as I was writing my earlier comment.
What's neat about the website stuff is that even if it's not as good now (idk, I haven't looked), that value they created is still there in the older case study — there were so many good resources. I was the disability rep in a few student societies, as well as in a few volunteer orgs after uni, and we referenced the guidelines a few times. Good resources like that are especially useful in those contexts — because they helped turn "that would be nice, but we don't have the resources to implement accessibility in our materials" into "okay, let's put our money where our mouth is and do our best to make something as accessible as we can"
fluxx@mander.xyz · 55 pts · 154d
Wow, some good news on Lemmy? Sign me up!
Slovene85@sh.itjust.works · 23 pts · 153d
!goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
themaninblack@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 153d
Sick! Are there any more of these?
Allero@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 153d
!upliftingnews@lemmy.world
!positivity@lemmy.today (shameless self-promotion)
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 154d
Hell yes. I wonder how many man-hours of strategy meetings MS had on their calendars to fend that decision off.
Kapirotto@lemmy.ml · 30 pts · 153d
It's so good to see initiatives like these! Hope it spreads across Europe and the World.
wrinkle2409@lemmy.cafe · 30 pts · 154d
Based
Hiro8811@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 153d
Isn't odf the one used by libre office?
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip · 18 pts · 153d
More than that, it's standardization made MS panic and pseudo-standardize their OOXML (.docx & co.) a year later, since some govt wanted to switch to ODF back in 2007, instead of relying on some proprietary format. The pseudo, because most of the format is proprietary extensions (and only the strict variant is standard-conformant, which MS doesn't set as default), which made the standardization a ...unusual process.
Btw, usually, there's only one standard format for a specific usecase.
Edit: typo
splendid9583@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 153d
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 153d
Yes and they switched form MsOffice to Libre like few years ago for all government agencies
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 153d
Isn't it odt that LibreOffice uses? I wonder what the difference is.
trougnouf@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 153d
Open document text is a subset of open document format
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 153d
Thank you!
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 153d
Gotta love Germany.
Fun fact: the German equivalent of the BBC, DW, will teach you German if you want to learn it, for free. A but niche but a nice thing to do!
https://www.dw.com/
LorIps@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 153d
DW isn't the equivalent of the BBC. It's more of a equivalent to e.g. Radio Free Europe. DW is entirely funded by the German government, in contrast to the BBC or ARD/ZDF which are independently funded. I'm not saying DW is bad, but it isn't the equivalent of the BBC.
anon_8675309@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 153d
Their contract with Microslop must be up for renegotiation.
maplesaga@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 153d
Much of Europe break their own procurement laws to choose Microslop, no idea why.
recycle_me_please@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 153d
Gut
ripcord@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 153d
I remember reading this headline in 2004