All Budget 2009 Documents in ODF (OpenOffice) format.

Oracle

Progress at last! All the budget documents are available on the Department of Finance's web site in open document format: http://budget.gov.ie/2009SupApril09/otherformats.html

croo

hooray!
Now if we could just get them to write a good budget!

Orion

There'd be a way of saving money - convert the civil service to open source and do away with MS licensing fees. There'd be an initial investment in rolling out and training of course but the long term benefits could be huge. It's worked in France.

croo

I believe some of the German states shifted to foss too, and the Dutch... and I recently read
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7910110.stm
but the last time I read that of the UK it turned out to be a bargaining strategy.

democrates

It's another example of revenue getting it right with IT, their systems have got to be gigantic and complex yet they still manage to be flexible and accurate. That outcome is down to in-house savvy with support from the top, and unlike those presiding over PPARS or PULSE they don't try to use IT as a trojan horse to sneak changes past the IR process.

Oracle

I like the web page were they describe the different formats available for download. I think the information about ODF is useful and positive. There's handy links to OpenOffice and StarOffice too: http://budget.gov.ie/instructions.html

Gary Conway

Macros42 wrote: »

There'd be a way of saving money - convert the civil service to open source and do away with MS licensing fees. There'd be an initial investment in rolling out and training of course but the long term benefits could be huge. It's worked in France.

The Office of Public Works have been using Open office for 3 years now along with a number of other Open Source products such as the GIMP, Scribus, Firefox to name a few.

The initial cost of deployment and training is a minute fraction of the cost of paying MS licensing fees.

Orion

Really? Excellent. It's good to see progress is being made.

Oracle

Glad to hear about the OPW, maybe they could spread the good news to other government departments.

I think deployment and training for OpenOffice would be far easier, and less costly, than for the so called "upgraded products" promoted by existing software vendors. Although training might help for using OpenOffice, for basic needs it's not essential. The interface is so familiar most people can use it straight away.

dueyfinster

A friend of mine in College (who's mother works in Agri Dept) told me they converted to Ubuntu on their desktops; anyone hear of that?