Category: Open Document Format

Germany has made ODF mandatory as the standard format for documents within its sovereign digital infrastructure. The decision is incorporated into the Deutschland-Stack, the framework governing the development, procurement and management of digital systems for public administration at all levels. This is neither a pilot project nor a recommendation from a working group, but a mandate backed by the federal government and the coalition agreement.

The official document has been published by the IT-Planungsrat, the central political steering body comprising the federal government and state governments, which promotes and develops common, user-oriented IT solutions for efficient and secure digital administration in Germany: https://www.it-planungsrat.de/beschluss/b-2026-03-it.

At this point, the question for all other European governments is clear: what are you waiting for? With this decision, the distinction between those who care about digital sovereignty and those who do not becomes stark.

There are no more excuses

Over the years, public administrations in Europe have accumulated a series of tired excuses, long since overtaken by the facts, for not making standard and open document formats mandatory. Let’s examine them one by one.

ODF isn’t mature enough. ODF has been an ISO standard since 2006. It is now at version 1.4, with active development, a broad ecosystem of implementations and adoption by numerous national governments, the European Parliament and major public administrations worldwide. The maturity argument has long been superseded.

Changing the document format requires staff retraining. The explicit principle of Germany’s sovereign stack is to reduce the effects of lock-in. If the objection is the cost of retraining, you are saying that the commercial interests of the dominant supplier outweigh those of citizens and institutions. This is an acceptable position in the private sector, but inadmissible in the realm of public policy.

The market standard format guarantees interoperability. The market standard, adopted uncritically by public administrations without any verification of its characteristics, is a proprietary format designed for lock-in rather than interoperability, to the extent that it was approved by ISO under the name OOXML Transitional because it contains proprietary elements. ODF, by contrast, is interoperable by definition, and as such has evolved over the years.

We are bound by existing procurement contracts. Contracts come to an end, whilst regulatory frameworks are renewed, and today, faced with the need to ensure European digital sovereignty, the time has come to integrate open standards into them, without waiting another decade for the next renewal cycle, whilst continuing to pay for access to documents that administrations have created using public money.

Today, none of these objections hold water anymore. Germany’s decision demonstrates that even a large and complex federal government can take an important step in the right direction. The obstacles are political, not technical.

The European policy framework

The transition from proprietary formats to standard, open formats for documents, incidentally, is not a radical choice, but an alignment with decisions already taken by European institutions, contained within various laws or regulations that have already been approved.

The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) – the reference document for interoperability in public services – requires the use of open standards and calls for the avoidance of formats that create dependency on a single supplier. The EIF does not explicitly mention Open Document Format, but the logic of the document leads to the choice of ODF.

The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), the Network Information Security 2 (NIS2) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) state that European digital infrastructure must be built using controllable technologies. Documents are the means by which decisions are recorded and communicated, and form part of the infrastructure; they should therefore be in a standard, open format that is easy to control. This is another example of legislation that does not explicitly mention the Open Document Format, but whose logic leads to the choice of ODF.

Finally, the Interoperable Europe Act (IEA), which came into force in 2024, defines the legal framework for interoperability between EU public administrations and explicitly cites open standards, which – in the context of documents – means ODF and not OOXML, which, even if considered a standard (by a stretch of the imagination), is certainly not open.

Germany has linked these three points. The Deutschland-Stack identifies ODF not as an ideological choice but as a key element of a sovereign, interoperable digital infrastructure aligned with Europe. Other EU governments operating within the same regulatory and political context should apply the same logic.

The current situation in EU countries

Germany is not the only country to have taken steps towards open document standards, although the Deutschland-Stack is the most comprehensive and structurally integrated commitment seen at national level.

France made ODF mandatory in the 2009 Référentiel Général d’Interopérabilité, with subsequent updates strengthening this requirement. The French public administration has a legal obligation to use open formats in its dealings with citizens and between agencies.

The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark have all, at different times, adopted policies recommending or requiring open document formats in public administration. In 2014, the United Kingdom made ODF mandatory for government documents, and the decision has never been revoked.

Even the Guidelines for the Digital Administration Code, issued in 2023 by the Italian Government’s Agency for Digital Italy (AGID), would define open standards for documents in such a way that only Open Document Format is included in the list, but these are almost always disregarded without reason by public administrations.

Thus, EU governments that seriously examine the issue tend to reach the same conclusion: ODF is the appropriate standard document format for a sovereign and interoperable public administration. What varies are the levels of implementation, and the willingness to see it through when proprietary vendors put up resistance through intense lobbying.

The Deutschland-Stack raises the bar, integrating the choice of ODF into a comprehensive, cross-cutting sovereign infrastructure framework, based on explicit architectural principles and supported by coordinated decisions at every level of the federal system. This is the model to follow.

Our call to action, which should be that of all EU citizens

If you are a government official, a digital policy advisor, the CIO of a public administration, or a minister responsible for digital transformation in any EU country, this post is for you.

You do not need to invent a new policy, but to apply the logic you already accept (on sovereignty, interoperability, reducing dependence on suppliers, and building a public digital infrastructure that serves citizens rather than Big Tech shareholders) to the documents in your stack.

Germany has done so with determination. France, Italy and other countries have done so clearly, though not quite as resolutely. The European regulatory framework demands it, and the open-source ecosystem – with software that properly supports ODF, which today consists solely of solutions based on the LibreOffice Technology stack – is ready to support it.

The only thing standing between your administration and the ODF mandate is the decision to adopt it. We are ready to help you, not only to make this decision but also to turn it into a successful project.

The Document Foundation is the home of LibreOffice, and one of the leading advocates of open document standards in public administration across Europe and the world. For information on adopting LibreOffice and ODF in public administration, please write to info@documentfoundation.org.

Last week, the European Commission published the draft guidelines for the CRA and opened a comment session open to all stakeholders until the end of March.

In its first version, the consultation page allowed users to download the draft guidelines and related communication in PDF format, and the feedback template in proprietary XLSX format only.

For this reason, we protested through a post and an open letter to the European Commission, asking that the feedback template also be provided in the open and standard ODS format.

Within 24 hours, officials from DG CONNECT—responsible for the CRA—responded positively to our request and added the template in ODS format.

This is an important first step towards the interoperability that proprietary formats do not allow, and indeed seek to limit by making the DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX formats increasingly different from a standard with the addition of unnecessary complexities.

To all those individuals who insist on considering OOXML a standard because it has been approved by ISO, and to all software that supports OOXML by using it as the default format, we remind you that you are going against not only your own interests but also the interests of all citizens of the world, and first and foremost European citizens.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to the officials of the European Commission’s DG CONNECT, in the hope that this is only the first step towards a future of interoperability and European digital sovereignty, not against technologies developed in other countries but in favor of freedom and awareness of digital technologies, for the benefit above all of future generations and their digital freedoms.

In conclusion, we invite everyone to use the ODS template for their feedback, demonstrating how important the open and standard ODF format is, and how widely it is used by those who truly care about European digital sovereignty.

Every year, millions of students open a laptop and log into Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, surrendering their digital sovereignty to US Big Tech in the process. Teachers use cloud-based editors to assign homework. School administrators manage documents in proprietary formats. This ecosystem runs smoothly and seemingly without friction, but almost no one questions the cost of this normalisation.

Unfortunately, the cost is quite high.

An invisible resume

Schools don’t just teach maths and history; they also teach mental processes, such as how to do research, think critically and interact with tools and institutions. Software is part of this invisible curriculum. A student who has spent years using Microsoft Word or Google Docs as the archetype of “word processing” or “collaboration” respectively has not developed neutral, transferable skills, but has become a future customer.

This is not a conspiracy, but rather the way markets work. Microsoft and Google both offer heavily discounted or even free licences to educational institutions, knowing that brand loyalty formed in childhood tends to persist into adulthood and the working world. The licence discount is, in commercial terms, the cost of acquiring a new customer, which schools effectively pay on behalf of the seller.

LibreOffice offers an alternative to this approach, teaching students to develop a different type of relationship with their tools.

Privacy and data security

LibreOffice is a free office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux, managed by the non-profit organisation The Document Foundation and developed by a global community of contributors. It offers programs for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, drawings and mathematical formulas — in other words, all the functions required in a school environment.

Unlike Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, LibreOffice does not require a subscription or an internet connection. It also does not require the creation of accounts for minors or send data to remote servers. It installs and works locally, so data stays where the user puts it.

For schools operating in areas with poor connectivity — a more widespread reality than one might think — this is not a minor issue, but the difference between a functioning lesson and a frozen loading screen.

For schools concerned about student privacy, the difference is even more significant. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace collect behavioural and usage data, and the terms of service governing the management, storage and use of this data are opaque, complex and subject to change.

LibreOffice does not collect any data, either user or operational, as no account is required to use it and there is no default telemetry. Therefore, there is no data to lose in the event of a malfunction or system breach.

The lesson of open standards

LibreOffice is based on the Open Document Format (ODF), an ISO standard file format that no company owns or controls. Documents created in ODF today will be readable by any ODF-compatible software, even in 20 or 50 years’ time. This is not because the vendor has decided to maintain backward compatibility, but because the standard is public, documented and independent of any commercial interests.

This is extremely important for schools, which are public services funded by citizens and accountable to communities, not private businesses. The documents they produce, such as curricula, assessments, student records and administrative correspondence, belong to the public sphere to a certain extent. Locking these documents into a proprietary format controlled by a single US company creates a form of digital dependency that is incompatible with the commitment of educational institutions to autonomy and critical thinking.

Teaching students to create and share documents in an open format shows them that technology can be responsible and transparent, and that the tools they use do not have to be ‘black boxes’ owned by a company.

The potential lesson of Linux

LibreOffice is the default office suite in most Linux distributions. A school that adopts LibreOffice is a school that has opened the door to using Linux on its personal computers. This is important for budgetary reasons — Linux significantly extends the useful life of older PCs — but also from an educational perspective.

This is demonstrated by the experience of Italian schools in the province of Bolzano, Italy, which use the Linux distribution FUSS (Free Upgrade for a Digitally Sustainable School). On 20 April 2026, it will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a public event where I will talk about the topics covered in this article.

Linux powers the internet, large research centres such as CERN, the world’s top 50 supercomputers, most smartphones and a large proportion of corporate infrastructure with which students will work when they leave school or university.

Students who have grown up using only Windows or Chromebooks have no practical knowledge of how operating systems work, how software is installed and managed, or how IT infrastructure is structured. However, a student who has used a Linux-based system, even in a school setting, will have at least a basic understanding of the fundamentals of modern computing.

This is not an ideological commitment to open source. It is about training graduates who understand the technological world they are entering and the digital tools they will use throughout their lives.

The pitfalls of proprietary software

A student who uses proprietary software throughout their education may unknowingly absorb a series of misconceptions and misinformation:

• That documents reside in the cloud or on someone else’s server as if this were normal and natural.
• Collaboration means sharing access within a supplier’s system.
• That software is a subscription service which is paid for monthly and whose features or price may change at any time.
• That the interface of a tool is defined by what a company has decided to build and not by what users need.
• Lock-in of proprietary formats is an integral part of the system because that’s just how things are.

All of this information is biased and teaches dependency. It serves the long-term commercial interests of suppliers rather than the long-term autonomy of students.

In contrast, LibreOffice lessons teach that software can be free as in freedom, not just free as in price; that file formats can be public standards; that the user community, rather than profit, can be the basis for software development; and that the tools we use can be transparent, modifiable and independent of a single company’s commercial strategies.

An analysis of the counterarguments

Students must learn the tools they will use in the workplace. In theory, this argument has some merit, but in reality, it is inconsistent because the conceptual skills developed with Microsoft 365 — document structuring, formatting, use of styles and spreadsheet formula management — can be transferred to LibreOffice and vice versa. According to the logic of this argument, skills learned on a platform that later changes its interface or mode of delivery from desktop to cloud are not transferable. Microsoft has modified its products several times over the last ten years. The enduring lesson is to learn the concepts, not the menus.

Google Docs facilitates collaboration. This is true within the Google ecosystem. LibreOffice, together with Nextcloud or a similar solution, offers comparable collaboration features without exposing data. However, the problem in this case is the lack of expertise in schools to configure it, which highlights the need for better IT support in education rather than permanent structural dependence on Google.

LibreOffice is more difficult to use. For users who have never used either, the learning curves are comparable, and the perception that Microsoft Office is “easier” largely stems from prior exposure, which itself stems from schools having already made the choice we are questioning.

A concrete proposal

The transition, of course, must not be abrupt or absolute, since this could trigger resistance to change, especially among parents, who in most cases have been victims of the pitfalls of proprietary software.

Schools could start with a few small steps:

• Adopt ODF as the standard format for all documents, regardless of the software used to create them. This would break the format lock-in without requiring an immediate change in software.
• Introduce LibreOffice alongside proprietary tools, allowing all students to work with both and understand the differences in approach between proprietary software and FOSS.
• Migrate administrative workflows to LibreOffice to reduce licensing costs and create institutional familiarity before introducing it in classrooms.
• Collaborating with local FOSS communities for technical support and training would be a form of civic engagement that would benefit both schools and businesses in the area.

None of these small steps represents a radical choice. Many school systems in Europe have adopted these measures, either fully or partially, and experience shows that the transition can be managed and that the benefits are real.

Conclusion

The dominance of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace in schools is not the result of these tools being proven to be superior for educational purposes. Rather, it is the result of effective commercial strategies, network effects and institutional inertia. Schools have largely accepted this situation without considering the long-term costs in terms of student data, public budgets, digital sovereignty and the type of digital citizens that schools and universities should be educating.

LibreOffice offers an alternative approach based on open standards, public accountability and independence from commercial platforms. While not perfect, it is a tool that schools can truly own and control.

This is worth much more than a discounted or seemingly free subscription.