this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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772
Germany has just made the standard Open Document Format (ODF) mandatory (blog.documentfoundation.org)
submitted 5 days ago by FirmDistribution@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 139 points 4 days ago (1 children)

good!

Germany’s decision to anchor ODF at the heart of its national sovereign stack confirms what we have argued for years: open, vendor-neutral document formats are not a niche concern for some technology specialists and FOSS advocates. They are a fundamental infrastructure for democratic, interoperable and sovereign public administrations.

I'm gonna repeat this, as expressed here, to a few people

[–] S_H_K@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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 points 4 days ago

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

[–] fluxx@mander.xyz 52 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Wow, some good news on Lemmy? Sign me up!

[–] Slovene85@sh.itjust.works 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] themaninblack@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sick! Are there any more of these?

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

!upliftingnews@lemmy.world !positivity@lemmy.today (shameless self-promotion)

[–] Brkdncr@lemmy.world 31 points 4 days ago

Hell yes. I wonder how many man-hours of strategy meetings MS had on their calendars to fend that decision off.

[–] Hiro8811@lemmy.world 22 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Isn't odf the one used by libre office?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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

[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yes and they switched form MsOffice to Libre like few years ago for all government agencies

[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Isn't it odt that LibreOffice uses? I wonder what the difference is.

[–] trougnouf@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Open document text is a subset of open document format

[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago

Thank you!

[–] wrinkle2409@lemmy.cafe 27 points 5 days ago

Based

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

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 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

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.

[–] recycle_me_please@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

Gut

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Their contract with Microslop must be up for renegotiation.

[–] maplesaga@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Much of Europe break their own procurement laws to choose Microslop, no idea why.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

I remember reading this headline in 2004