Shame

I'm ashamed that the Danish democracy (The Parliament; Folketinget) can appear so little creditable, that the country is at laugh to our neighbors (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/12/12/danes-set-open-standards-trial). A decision in the Parliament has within a year and a half been reduced to nothing. It's not worth the ink.

It started so well in 1996, the parliament agreed (with no votes against it) to support a definition of open standards: It must be real open!

The next year it appeared that one or two local IT-managers couldn't live up to the "Readiness for changes" mentioned in his resume. The MP's got cold feet because they were afraid of criticism. All the good and innovative thoughts was completely killed by low practical questions and fear of the unknown.

Originally it was agreed that the final solution (end 2009) should be based on evaluations regarding influence on the competition and innovation and not (only) from practical decisions regarding interoperability (even that is important).

Before the election for Parliament last year, there was no limits to the promises from the political parties. Almost all political parties was agreeing on one and only one standard. ODF. But of cause I am naive.

The political parties behind the original proposal B 103 is bragging about how Denmark is ahead of other countries regarding the use of open standards.This is absolutely not the truth. We Danes (the parliament) made a decision in 2006; and if that decision is implemented as it was decided; yes we would be ahead. But unfortunately the implementation does not live up to the original word nor spirit. Please have a look at this report from the ODF Alliance, listing several countries and their opinion on open standards and how it's being implemented. http://www.odfalliance.org/resources/AnnualReport2007.pdf