for Local Governments

26
ICT for Local Governments
Standards, principles and best practices
4. The published standard must be available for all to copy and distribute, either
free of charge or for a nominal fee; and
5. Any patents present in the standard are to be irrevocably available on a royalty-free
basis.
The above definition has attracted controversy even though the area of validity is confined
to pan European projects carried out in the context of the IDABC Programme[21]
[22]. FOSS groups and advocates have welcomed it but other groups, including ANSI
(American National Standards Institute), BSA (Business Software Alliance) and EICTA
(European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association), have
criticized it, particularly with respect to the last two criteria. These parties point out
that they are inconsistent with the approach taken by other standards development
organizations that acknowledge the right of patent holders to charge reasonable royalties
and to place reasonable restrictions on the licensing of their essential technology
covering an open standard.
The European Commission’s IDA expert group on open document formats has recommended
that the European Union’s public sector use open formats in their electronic
documents[7]. For revisable documents, XML-based formats like the Open Document
format from OASIS and Microsoft’s new XML based MS Office formats are recommended.
2.1.2 United Kingdom
The United Kingdom’s e-government initiative places a lot of emphasis on open technical
standards to achieve seamless information flow across the public sector and to
provide citizens and business with better access to government services [8]. Its e-Government
Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) defines the technical policies and specifications
governing information flows across government and the public sector. Complying
with e-GIF at the highest level includes the use of open standards like XML as
the primary means for data integration and the implementation of Internet and WWW
standards [9].
2.1.3 Denmark
The Danish e-Government Interoperability Framework includes recommendations and
status assessments for more than 450 selected standards, specifications and technologies
used in its e-government solutions [10]. In general, the Framework recommends
the use of open standards and centrally agreed XML schemas (which may be provided
free of charge throughout the public sector) for data interchange.