Norwegian Minister says that all public sectors need to make a plan for the use of Open Source by 2005

The Norwegian government is taking large steps in their software policy: everybody in the public sector has to develop a plan for use of open source solutions within 2006. The Norwegian Minister of Modernization, Morton A. Meyer, presented new plan for information technology in Norway called “eNorge – the digital leap", where one of the points concerned open standards and open source. The details are not yet finalized, but the plan stipulate these objectives for standardization and open source:

· Within 2009 all new ICT- and information systems in the public sector shall use open standards.
· Within 2006 a set of management/administrative standards for data and document exchange should be established
· Within 2006 all operations in the public sector should have introduced plans for how they will use open standards, service oriented architecture and open source.
· Within 2008 all data and document exchange in the public sector shall satisfy the management/administrative standards.
· Within 2008 all public forms shall be built on a common interface.

Meyer also said “Proprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and government.” Exactly what formats will be used, and how the public sector will get out of the grip of the major players, is yet to be worked out and specified. The first expected result is by the end of 2005, by then it should be decided how the further work and development of the management/administrative standards in the public sector will be organized.

IDABC