Some Government Open Standards Policies and Initiatives

The OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance) hascongratulated Russia for its recent commitment to evaluate the economic benefits of ODF, and for adopting an Action Plan to embrace open standards.

The “Action Plan on Open Source Software Development and Usage in the Russian Government,” as presented for publication by Russia's Ministry for Information technologies and Communications, envisions legislative requirements to mandate the procurement of software based on how well it adheres to “widely used standards (primarily ISO standards), and creates conditions and requirements for government contracts that [would otherwise] want to use closed / proprietary specifications.”