Open Standards Hit the Airwaves

Denmark's Hard Disk radio program will air an interview by Anders Høeg Nissen with me and John Gotze, a member of the Open ePolicy Group, this weekend. We will talking about open standards, ODF and the openization of ICT ecosystems.

The program is already available online here. The show is mainly in Danish, but my comments are in english.

Also available is fhe full audio for last week's Open Standards Conference in Copenhagen. My presentation on the Roadmap for Open ICT Ecosystems starts about 5 minutes into the program. Have a listen here!

Google Steps into Open (Again)

Google just announced its latest push for openness -- interoperability among IM and VoIP services -- on its official blog. If it's good enough for email, why not messenging and internet telephony?

In this instance, Google's "open federation" approach will rely on an XML-based standard controlled by an open source foundation. If only other companies were willing to leave control over standards to others and not push their own proprietary agenda.

Google and AOL will support this push for interoperability. Expect Microsoft and Yahoo to sign on shortly.

Openness -- and the interoperability and access it brings to users and industry -- are catching on.

Something Open in the State of Denmark

An open standards conference was held at the Danish Parliament on Friday, January 13th. But there was nothing unlucky about the day. Indeed, there is definitely a movement afoot for openness in Denmark.

Open standards have become a serious political issue. One Danish MP, Morten Helveg Petersen, has introduced a draft motion in Parliament (english translation available here) calling for open standards to be required by the Danish government. The buzz at the conference included an expectation that open standards might soon be made public policy by the City of Copenhagen as well as Norway, the neighbor to the north.