WHAT OPEN MEANS
Free, published, royalty-free
Open standards give users permission to copy, distribute and use technology freely or at low cost, and must work with both open source and proprietary software.
The full testYou should not need to buy software to read a public document.
That is the idea behind open standards: shared, published rules for formats and data that any supplier can build on. The UK government sets out how it chooses them, and which ones its departments must use.
- Free to use
- Published openly
- Any software
- Shared rules, more choice
THE SHORT ANSWER
Open means anyone
can use the rules.
The UK Open Standards Principles
set out what counts, and why it matters.
DOCUMENTS
HTML first, PDF/A if needed
Government documents are published in HTML5. If a PDF is needed it must be PDF/A, and an open format must be published with it.
Match a task
EVERYDAY DATA
Dates, characters, invites
Departments use ISO 8601 for machine-readable dates, UTF-8 for characters and iCalendar for meeting invitations.
Where you meet them
WHERE YOU MEET THEM
Open standards
in daily life.
Most open standards are invisible until something fails to open. A few habits help you spot and use them.
Look for the HTML version
The viewing documents profile says government should publish documents in HTML5, so they can be read on any device.
Check the file extension
.odt, .ods and .odp are Open Document Format files for text, spreadsheets and presentations.
Name files by date
Government uses ISO 8601 dates for sorting, for example at the start of filenames, so files line up in date order.
Use iCalendar for invites
iCalendar lets a meeting request be shared by website, email, SMS or file, whatever calendar system people use.
TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
A short list
with firm tests.
One figure on how standards are chosen,
one on the extra tests each must pass.
7
Principles for choosing open standards
They include meeting user needs, giving suppliers equal access to government contracts, supporting flexibility and change, supporting sustainable cost, and using fair and transparent processes.
SELECTION · OPEN STANDARDS PRINCIPLES
5
Extra conditions every open standard must meet
Well documented and free to use; mature; supported by the market; released under an irrevocable royalty-free licence; and compatible with open source and proprietary software.
OPENNESS TESTS · OPEN STANDARDS PRINCIPLES
The principles were first published in 2012 and revised in 2015 and 2018. They apply to all government departments and agencies, and local government and the wider public sector are encouraged to adopt them.
MATCH A TASK TO A STANDARD
Which standard
does the job?
Pick a task to see which open standard UK government has chosen for it. The bar shows how firmly the government profile words the rule.
Based on the GOV.UK open standards profiles published by the Government Digital Service and Central Digital and Data Office.
WHAT COUNTS AS OPEN
Made together,
free to use.
The government only selects open standards that were developed through collaboration between all interested parties, not just individual suppliers, with a transparent, published decision-making process and a published feedback and ratification process.
The aim is to let users exchange data using the software of their choice, avoid lock-in to one supplier, and give open source and proprietary suppliers equal access to government contracts. Anyone can suggest an open standard for adoption.
In conversation
Questions people ask
What is an open standard?
In UK government policy, open standards give users permission to copy, distribute and use technology freely or at low cost. They must be well documented, publicly available and free to use, and released under a royalty-free licence.
Is an open standard the same as open source?
No. An open standard is a published set of rules for a format or interface. The UK principles require open standards to be compatible with both open source and proprietary software.
Why does government publish in HTML rather than PDF?
The viewing documents profile says to use HTML5 to publish documents, so people can read them on their own devices. A PDF must be PDF/A and come with an open format.
What is ODF?
The Open Document Format is the standard government uses for sharing editable documents when browser-based editing is not possible, with extensions such as .odt, .ods and .odp.
Who decides which standards government uses?
The Open Standards Board has final approval. It uses the Open Standards Principles and can make standards compulsory; departments can request an exemption with an economic appraisal.
Sources
Each figure on this page comes from the sources below.
- GOV.UK: Open Standards Principles (2018)
- GOV.UK: Viewing government documents (open standards profile)
- GOV.UK: Sharing or collaborating with government documents (ODF)
- GOV.UK: Open standards for government data and technology (collection)
- GOV.UK: Cross-platform character encoding profile (UTF-8)
- GOV.UK: Date-times and time stamps standard (ISO 8601)