Intended for reuse by other governments, says member of LibreItalia
A free software advocate has created an editable version of the UK government’s Open Document Format manuals, the “ODF Guidance”. Making the texts available on the Github software development repository facilitates others to edit, update and translate the texts, explains Paolo Dongilli, uploaded the documents to Github on 28 October.
Dongilli hopes the Github version of the ODF manuals will help public administrations transition to LibreOffice, an open source suite of office productivity tools.
“The UK’s guidance is useful for all governments considering to use ODF,” explains Dongilli. Making the text available in an easy to edit and update version will allow others to pitch in, he says. Others can now help to keep the document up-to-date, correct typos and add new content. “It should also make it easer to work on translations”, he expects.
Dongilli, an enterprise architect working for the Italian province of Bolzano, is one of the founding members of LibreItalia, an association promoting LibreOffice. He is also a member of the Document Foundation, the NGO involved in developing LibreOffice.
Useful to all
The UK Government published the ODF Guidance using its Open Government Licence, the IT architect explains. “This allows the creation of other versions.” In Dongilli’s version, all references to the UK government context have been removed, creating a version that is useful to any and all public administrations. “This should become a living document, that can be easily adapted”, Dongilli says.
The UK government published the recommendations and guidelines on the use and implementation of ODF, on 7 September. In the UK, ODF is the standard document format for editable office documents. ODF is to be used across all of the UK’s public administrations. Switching to ODF supports the government’s policy to create a level playing field for ICT suppliers of all sizes. ODF is a standard independent from IT vendors, the format can be implemented by any software application, proprietary or open source.
More information:
Open Document Format (ODF): A Guidance for Governments (at Github)
Open Document Format (ODF): guidance for UK government (the UK government version)
ODF studie on Joinup’s NIFO community