This presentation has been the opening presentation at the LOD2 (http://lod2.eu) Meetup in Brussels, Belgium on 26.01.2011 at the fedict (http://www.fedict.belgium.be/) office. See also: http://lod2.eu/BlogPost/?p=203

1. E-Government & Open Standards
“Can we cure the Federal State of Alzheimer's disease ?”
Peter Strickx
LOD2 – 26/01/2011
© Fedict 2009. All rights reserved

2. Fedict
 Develops & Implements e-gov strategy
 Supports other departments (“virtual matrix”)
 Develops & Implements Guidelines/Standards
 Develops & Supports common infrastructure
 Manages the inter-gov relationships
© Fedict 2009. All rights reserved | p.

3. Fedict
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
© Fedict 2009. All rights reserved | p.

4. e-gov requirements
> Total Solution (integrated services)
> “I will say it only once” –
Authoritative [Data] Source (even
between governments) – limit
admin. formalities
> Customer focus / User friendly
> Minimal cost/
reliable/available/performance
> Transparent & Respect for Privacy
> No digital divide (channel neutral)

5. Interoperability & Open Standards
> Technical interoperability
• via single-vendor solution
• Lock-in situation (no competition/less flexibility)
• Gov. can not impose products on its customers
• Via “de facto” standard
• Strong dependencies on market leader
• Via Open Standards

6. On the road to government transparency ?
© Fedict 2009. All rights reserved | p.

7. Transparency & Open Standards
> The European Union Directive 2003/98/EC,
commonly called the Public Sector Information
Directive :
> "(2) The evolution towards an information and
knowledge society influences the life of every
citizen in the Community . . . (3) Content
production has given rise to rapid job creation in
recent years and continues to do so . . . (5)
Public sector information is an important primary
material for digital content products and services
and will become an even more important content
resource with the development of wireless
content services."

8. Transparency & Open Standards
> Open Government Data = Public government
information, such as government records, that is
shared with the public digitally, over the Internet,
in a way that promotes analysis and reuse.

9. Transparency & Open Standards
From “The Digital Universe Decade – Are you ready ?” IDC Study (May 2010)

10. Transparency & DLM & Open Standards

11. Transparency & DLM & Open Standards
> Data should be disclosed in formats that:
• Do not rely on a single product or company
to be used.
• Are fully documented & self-describing
• Maximize potential uses.
• Are freely available to the public without
licensing, patent, or other restrictions.
 From http://www.opengovdata.org/

12. Open Standards
> Council of Ministers (June 2004)
> Open Specification
• publicly available at no or nominal cost
• Detailed enough to create full implementation
> Free Specification
• license should not inhibit commercial or open-
source implementations (no preference stated !)
• multiple (independent) implementations ?
> Open Standard
• recognized by international standards body
(implying “open” process to adopt/change,
without exclusion of parties)

13. Open Standards@Fedict
© Fedict 2009. All rights reserved | p.

14. Implementing Open Standards: The “ODF directive”
> Exchanging documents between Belgian federal
government agencies (June 2006)
• Scope: exchanging “editable”/”revisable” documents
(collaboration)
• ODF is chosen standard (not exclusive)
• read ODF documents (September 2007)
• exchange ODF documents (September 2008)
• Other standards possible BUT requirements are:
• ISO standard
• multiple implementations (avoid vendor lock-in)
• compatibility with previous standard(s) (ie. ODF)

15. Current Standards activities @Fedict
> ODF & OOXML interoperability
> ODF/OOXML/PDF signatures (eID & Xades)
> PDF/A
> IPv6
> STORK (eID interoperability – SAML2)
> Open Data initiative

16. Summary
 Open Standards are essential for e-government
 Information accessibility (short/long-term) requires
Open Standards
 New challenges: Achieving government transparency
with Open Data.

17. © Fedict 2009. All rights reserved | p.