Open Standards NZ Co-signers

The undersigned have all agreed that the New Zealand government should create a level playing field for software by mandating that all software procurement, particularly of commercial-off-the-shelf software, only considers software complying with open standards that are vendor-neutral, royalty-free and unencumbered by patents.

Where no relevant open standard exists, the government should undertake to develop suitable open standards, building on those already available elsewhere.

The goal is for software suppliers to the NZ government to compete to meet government-specified open standards rather than competing to set their own proprietary standard as is currently common practise.

# Name Organisation Comment Submitted
81 Eion Robb 8 Jun 2016 20:43
82 Dylan Reeve Dylan Reeve 22 Jul 2015 10:39
83 Donald Johnston I have experienced problems in the past with my children's school requiring assignments to be submitted in Microsoft Office format which is a non-standard format. Parents should not have any need to purchase proprietary office software when there is very good free alternative software (e.g. Libre Office) which is completely standards compliant. 15 Nov 2015 22:03
84 Donald Johnston Learn Rapidly Ltd I don't want to be forced to use proprietary software when there is excellent alternative open source software available. 22 Jul 2015 12:55
85 donald callum robertson 27 Jul 2015 09:40
86 Don Johnston Learn Rapidly Ltd Because of the use of Microsoft Office in schools, parents are almost forced to purchase it to enable their children to do their homework on home computers. This would be totally unnecessary if schools were required to adopt open standards. 5 Nov 2016 14:33
87 Don Christie Catalyst IT 18 Nov 2016 13:09
88 Dom Tupu Sole Trader 24 Jul 2015 16:43
89 David Thompson University of Canterbury 5 Sep 2015 16:27
90 David Stewart 5 Aug 2015 06:20
91 David Nind 21 Nov 2016 22:24
92 David Love sole trader 22 Jul 2015 20:31
93 David J. Pearce Victoria University of Wellington 22 Jul 2015 10:56
94 David Crosswell sole trader When open source software supplies the needs of governments that dwarf that of New Zealand, with the reliability, stability, and security required by such entities as the International Space Station, along with the New York and London stock exchanges, there's no valid rationale for the New Zealand government to spend money on an inferior standard. As far as open standards are concerned, government should be facilitating communication, not stifling it. 22 Jul 2015 20:59
95 David Barnett 22 Jul 2015 12:32
96 Dave Lane NZ Open Source Society We at the NZ Open Source Society think that a level playing field for software is crucial for achieving an equitable society in the Internet Age. With more and more government services and compliance requirements moving to online systems, it has never been more important to ensure that we don't hand control of our national systems to overseas corporate interests. This is unfortunately currently the case, and we think it needs to change. We trust that the NZ government will see the common sense and free-market appeal of this initiative, and recognise that it will both reduce costs and increase social equity by reducing barriers to online participation by both the private sector and the citizens of NZ. 22 Jul 2015 10:40
97 Dave Koelmeyer Apertura Designs Limited 22 Jul 2015 16:57
98 Dave Horn 22 Jul 2015 17:33
99 Danny Adair 2 Nov 2016 15:26
100 Daniel Strypey Bruce Disintermedia.net.nz RadioNZ publishes all their archived radio material in the open Ogg Vorbis format, as well as the patent-encumbered (but more common) MP3 format. People can access this publicly-funded material using any internet-capable device, running any operating system, because there is no barrier-to-entry stopping developers from creating Ogg Vorbis support. This is just one example of the benefits of public organisations supporting open standards. 3 Aug 2015 09:54
101 Daniel Reurich Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd Until we have mandatory vendor neutral open standards for government, there will always be additional impediments to interactions with the government. It's time things were rebalanced and vendors brought to heel, so that everybody can participate regardless of the technology they have access too. 26 Jul 2016 11:47
102 Daniel Reurich Centurion Computer Technology (2005) Ltd 22 Jul 2015 16:04
103 Colin Jackson Jackson Strategy Government spends a truly vast amount on IT. It is the biggest purchaser of IT in New Zealand. Yet, despite IT being NZ's second largest export, most of that spend goes to overseas companies due to lock-in practices by multinationals. Come on, NZ government, this isn't hard, just solve it the way other countries do, by requiring open standards so that all IT companies can compete. 17 Nov 2016 22:40
104 Christopher Dempsey 2 Nov 2022 19:59
105 Chris Linwood 11 Jul 2016 15:18
106 Carl Geib 16 Jun 2020 13:41
107 Byron Cochrane Land Information New Zealand The promotion of open standards is fundamental to my work in promoting a national Spatial Data Infrastructure. To better and more efficiently leverage resources that already exist, encourage the creation of needed data that does not, and to provide a platform that increases the value and reliability of these data and the systems supporting their access, open standards are prerequisite. 29 Jul 2015 14:36
108 Brent Wood 9 Nov 2016 11:54
109 Brent Wood NIWA; NZOSS See: https://teamwork.niwa.co.nz/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=26575332 https://teamwork.niwa.co.nz/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=27983920 https://teamwork.niwa.co.nz/display/NZEIIF/New+Zealand+Environmental+Information+Interoperability+Framework - https://teamwork.niwa.co.nz/display/NZBSS/BSS+implementation+work+stream?preview=%2F35848234%2F44302667%2FBSS-implementation-report-final.pdf 27 Jun 2016 07:54
110 Brady Dyer Web Boutique Heard you talk at ITx2016 11 Jul 2016 14:58
111 Blake Burgess 2 Mar 2016 19:53
112 Ben McKenzie Presbyterian Support Otago 25 Jul 2015 10:19
113 Andrew Mason The Knowledge Group Ltd. 23 Nov 2016 09:58
114 Amie Holman Sole trader I work in the government, I have to use propietry software all of tyhe time, close platforms and non exsistant intergrations. Not only do we continuiosly send .docx files to everyone, we are stuck in an environment where any efforts to be as open source as possible are stiffled and discouraged. this makes me the ranty werid person in the office who often ends emails like the following "As you might notice the document is in .odt format (open licence format which means it’s legal for you to open the document in programs other than Microsoft word) this will mean if you want to track changes you will need to save as .docx (the licence that means I can only open the document legally in Microsoft word. This perpetuities the propriety software monopoly, which stifles freedoms and innovation, and goes against the ethos of open government partnership. I feel like this is a thing we might need to look at in the future)" 23 Jul 2015 17:00
115 Alexander Charles King Linuxworks Limited Open standards hold the potential to increase the productivity and accessibility of business and government. If universally adopted, we could create a step change in productivity. 22 Jul 2015 11:04
116 Alan Falloon 9 Jun 2016 16:55
117 Adrian Croucher 27 Jul 2015 16:57
118 Adrian Cochrane OpenWork Ltd I value free market competition, and this is how you get it in the software space. 19 Mar 2019 13:11
119 Adam Tansell-Murrow 5 Jan 2023 12:37
120 Abhishek Reddy 31 Jul 2015 18:36