Japanese Government Embraces Open Source

By Greg McNevin

July 17, 2007: Japan has become the latest country to have its government openly embrace the OpenDocument format, making a shift to a new policy structure that favours open source solutions over proprietary.

The Japanese government has adopted a new policy under which its ministries and agencies will accept bids from software vendors whose products support international open standards – a marked departure from its earlier policy.

Previously bids were only accepted from products that offered services similar to other proprietary software suites. The new policy makes the adoption of open source standards a much higher priority – much to the delight of the OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance) which has congratulated the country on the move.

“With its new interoperability framework, Japan is setting an important worldwide example,” said Marino Marcich, ODF Alliance Managing Director in a statement.

“By giving preference to open software formats such as ODF, it is saying that information should be competitively priced, innovative, and easily available to the widest range of people, now and in the future. We hail Japan for its diligence and vision.”

While the guidelines were developed for use in government departments and agencies, the government claims that they are also useful for private firms as well.

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