Open Standards in Portugal

[Marcos Marado]

In Portugal, after having a law that forces the Government to use Open
Standards, there's now this division defining how and which open standards to
support... The consultation about it ends at the 30th, and we're still in the
middle of the work for it. Several questions already rose, tho... And I'm
hoping someone can help us answering them in this last few days:

* TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (since the biggest F.S. browsers don't support it)
* is it true that konqueror supports them?
* is it true that midori supports them?
* is there any (free software) mail client that supports SMTPS, POP3S and
IMAP3S using TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (which one?)

* SQL 92 and SQL 99 - is there any free software database supporting
completely any of this two standards?

* is there any free software at all supporting (even if only partially) the
XBRL standard?

Thank you,

[Otto Kekäläinen]

Hello,

Post by Marcos Marado
In Portugal, after having a law that forces the Government to use Open
Standards, there's now this division defining how and which open standards to
support... The consultation about it ends at the 30th, and we're still in the
middle of the work for it. Several questions already rose, tho... And I'm

Sorry I missed the deadline.

Post by Marcos Marado
* TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (since the biggest F.S. browsers don't support it)
?* is it true that konqueror supports them?
?* is it true that midori supports them?
?* is there any (free software) mail client that supports SMTPS, POP3S and
? IMAP3S using TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (which one?)

I think neither Firefox nor Thuderbird support TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2,
even though it has been underway for a few years now (both use NSS). I
don't think we should advocate old standards just because some FOSS
does not support it, rather do it the other way, use the standard
requirement as an argument to get funding from the public sector to
implement support in FOSS (although I'm sure it's not easy).

http://support.mozilla.com/fi/questions/781028
https://wiki.mozilla.org/NSS:Roadmap

There is also a comparison in Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-mail_clients#SSL_and_TLS_support
but it reflects the support for TLS 1.0

I tried to look up closer the situation of Evolution mail, but I
didn't find any info about 1.1 or 1.2 (at least TLS 1.0 is supported).

Post by Marcos Marado
* SQL 92 and SQL 99 - is there any free software database supporting
?completely any of this two standards?

I don't think anybody supports completely these standards, but many
support the core parts. PostgreSQL boasts with its conformance. An
explanation is here:
http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/features.html

Post by Marcos Marado
* is there any free software at all supporting (even if only partially) the
?XBRL standard?

Never heard.


I think open standards is the way to go. Governments should enforce
them by requiring support with clausules like "X standard version x.x
or newer" where the x.x should be the version of the standard that was
released at least three years ago. In some software, free or not,
cannot keep up with the standard in three years, we should put effort
in software development rather than lobbying for stagnation in
standards requirements.. sometimes this can be though, dough.

[Marcos Marado]

Hi there,

Post by Otto Kekäläinen
Hello,

Post by Marcos Marado
In Portugal, after having a law that forces the Government to use Open
Standards, there's now this division defining how and which open
standards to support... The consultation about it ends at the 30th, and
we're still in the middle of the work for it. Several questions already
rose, tho... And I'm

Sorry I missed the deadline.

No problem, this is just one of the steps for this process, and your feedback
is very appreciated...

Post by Otto Kekäläinen

Post by Marcos Marado
* TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (since the biggest F.S. browsers don't support it)
* is it true that konqueror supports them?
* is it true that midori supports them?
* is there any (free software) mail client that supports SMTPS, POP3S
and IMAP3S using TLS 1.1 or 1.2 (which one?)

I think neither Firefox nor Thuderbird support TLS 1.1 or TLS 1.2,
even though it has been underway for a few years now (both use NSS). I
don't think we should advocate old standards just because some FOSS
does not support it, rather do it the other way, use the standard
requirement as an argument to get funding from the public sector to
implement support in FOSS (although I'm sure it's not easy).

Yeah, that was/is our general position, even if it's not that easy to do
recomendations in that state, without giving implementation examples... And
while I would love to see the funding from the public sector to implement
support in FOSS, I surely won't hold my breath.

Post by Otto Kekäläinen

Post by Marcos Marado
* is there any free software at all supporting (even if only partially)
the XBRL standard?

Never heard.

Not only it seems this is silently starting to be mandatory in an hell lot of
countries (which caught me by surprise, I only noticed it to search for this
matter...), it is encumbered with patents, so not considered by us as an open
standard.

Post by Otto Kekäläinen
I think open standards is the way to go. Governments should enforce
them by requiring support with clausules like "X standard version x.x
or newer" where the x.x should be the version of the standard that was
released at least three years ago. In some software, free or not,
cannot keep up with the standard in three years, we should put effort
in software development rather than lobbying for stagnation in
standards requirements.. sometimes this can be though, dough.

Agreed. It actually caught my attention that the work we're doing in Portugal
for this, and some other countries do/did for the same purpose would give us
quite good material for a list of "things needed", both regarding open
standards and free software supporting them...

Best regards, and thanks for your reply,