Government: opennes in data rather than software

Just an idea.  We see a lot about government selecting FOSS, etc, rather than
closed software.

There is a whole other side that has the potential, not only for promoting open
software directly, but also aiding the development of open software:

What about more emphasis on the potential for governments insisting that their
tax-funded work result in data that is stored in interchangeable formats?

Most organizations distribute and store documents as Word files.  If I were
starting a company today I would insist on documents with an openly published
specification so that there is a good chance of accessing them later.  It is
horrifying to think of the quantity of data generated by governments that will
be irretrievable in just a few years time.

To put it another way, I would not be so bothered to see files coming out of
closed-source software if I knew that they were not adding to the difficulty of
objective selection of software in the future.

Alex.

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Alex Stark

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