Mikkel Høgh

Coding the web since 1999

01 Jun 2006

Open standards, hooray!

So, it would seem that we’re really getting open standards in Denmark. A majority for a new law is forming in our parliament, Folketinget.

If it passes, all public authorities are required to start introducing open standards for communication by 2008. You can read more (in danish) here.

I’d think that big Bill won’t be pleased. I most certainly don’t pray and hope that Microsoft won’t get their new document standard ratified by ISO. If so, this might all be for naught. But let’s see. Europe’s goventments hasn’t (yet) shown the same subservience towards Microsoft as many others, and most probably, ISO will not be inclined to accept yet another XML-based document format. After all, one should be enough.

Generally, I think this is going to be a big win for the danish people, and especially for small companies aroung the country. Open standards will allow any company, big and small to compete on creating tomorrows IT solutions. I hope to be able to take advantage of that.