Slashdot Mirror
Massachusetts Finalizes OpenDocument Standard Plan
wellington map writes "The state of Massachusetts has finalized a proposed move to an open, nonproprietary format for office documents, a plan that involves phasing out versions of Microsoft's Office productivity suite deployed in the state's executive branch agencies. Massachusetts expects its agencies to develop phased migration plans away from productivity suites that do not support OpenDocument, with a target implementation date of January 1, 2007. Looks like it's finally cemented after some heated discussions."
I don't know about geekier, I'd say just less tolerent of poorly supported software. It did my heart good when the military started switching to Apple. In any case, it just goes to show that the future is open source...
No, they aren't. They are looking for ways to meet budgets. Not that this is a bad thing. They see their annual expenditure on IT and look for a way to cut costs. Open Source has been big news the past couple years (outside of geek circles). PHB thinks "hmmm this might be a good idea" In this case, PHB is right.
I also have seen the quality of tech support in several local gov't situation. Usually below industry pay rate (but nice benefits). And the hiring process favors women, minorities, those with prior civil service experience and military background. Some of the dumbest folks you ever want to meet are working for your local gov't. I had one "sys admin" forward me an e-mail about a dangerous file on my system that I had to delete... turned out to be a critical windows file.
So point is, this decision wasn't made based upon tech savvy. It was made based upon cost.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Microsoft grumbles, but implements OpenDocument in Office, and Massachusetts buys it. While official policy is to use OpenDocument, everyone continues using .doc because (1) non-government people are largely not using OD-capable Office versions and (2) Office's OD import/export is implemented horribly, so badly that even for people using OpenOffice importing and exporting .doc is a better choice.
I RTFA and it doesn't say one simple question "Why is Massachusetts doing this?" Now I can think of numerous reasons, but did OASIS? Or is OASIS simply justifying it's existence (however brief it might have been/will be) by creating an expensive (sorry, but migration IS expensive) procedure that will have to take place over a year? Beauraucrats love making policies, is this simply another example of that, without regard to the advantages and disadvantages?
The slashdot articles are also fairly free of any real reason. One cites some vague legal concerns (that frankly seemed devoid of any real information) while the other makes mention of a non-Microsoft format (called Voleware). If whatever they were using Voleware for wasn't meeting their needs, fine. But why this big policy change state-government wide? Why change all of the formats (when most of them CAN be opened under all modern operating systems)? Were the costs and disadvantages discussed along with the advantages? I can't see any indication of that. Does anyone that know more about this want to shed some light?
They were very smart IMHO. It's not trend-following. In fact they sort of appologize for not getting to this earlier (talking about how government tends to actually trail behind the private sector). Their reasoning is that they never want to need to worry in the future about being able to read old documents (MS can't make this guarantee - remember that state documents live for hundreds of years!). This was the big sticking point mostly. They also don't like one vendor controlling what they can do with their documents and didn't want to require the public to purchase expensive software to view these documents.
This is one of the few times I'm glad to be from Massachusetts. They had very well thought-out reasons behind this. The Microsoft representative couldn't even argue with them (though it sounds like he'd just gotten off a flight so he was probably pretty tired).
They stated that they don't require Open Office, just software that implements the OASIS spec. Microsoft is free to do so and then they will consider Office. It was the most complete spec that they found that offers all of the above points. I highly suggest listening to that recording. It's long, but not terribly boring (mostly techies in the room - few lawyers).
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Well I wouldn't say they are phasing out Microsoft. If you listened to the mp3 that was made available. They made it very clear their up most concerns about document retention. They also made it very clear how vendors can comply with their requirements. Since the Microsoft representative had a hard time understanding their requirements, MA itemized what Microsoft needed to do. And still Microsoft took the position the customer does not have the right to define their own requirements and must use what ever Microsoft deems they should.
Of all the company representatives present during that meeting, I did not hear one objecting to the goals MA has in mind, except one. And some of those companies present are not from the backwoods.
If anyone is phasing anyone one out, it is Microsoft doing it to themselves.
Whenever I bring it up to any of my clients, government or private side, they give me that deer in the headlights look. Even if you can dig out an old backup tape and demonstrate the files aren't conveniently recoverable it still doesn't seem to sink in.
The same with database storage. I'm amazed how many companies don't even have a freakin data dictionary. If you have to ask why you need one of those, then you need one. Maybe you just really like transposing fields and data types on the fly between every application you build. People must find that pleasurable because there's sure enough of them doing it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
This move was long overdue and hopefully the other states will follow soon. There are better uses of our tax dollars than filling the pockets of Microsoft folks. Afterall, OpenOffice and XML are pretty much standard nowadays.
A few reasons:
...OpenDocument is pretty new. It will take some time for industry to wake up to this, and for support for it to ramp up towards "critical mass", but it will happen - industry *is* tired of being extorted exorbitant rates every few years to be able to continue reading their own files.
.doc. This compels them to continue along the MS Office path even if there are open formats/software available. (Also short-term thinking is endemic in all human endeavours: The higher up-front migration cost is usually foregone in favour of lower short-term but higher long-term expenditure.)
... there is a kind of 'magic' point where enough people have adopted it and know about it that it becomes considered OK to send people documents in OpenDocument format. Massachusetts is an 'early adopter' (e.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm).
(1) For some odd reason, nobody had every really put forth a major, viable, industry-backed and powerful open specification for Office formats
(2) Compatibility with existing documents. Most large corps have many existing documents stuck in
(3) Document interchange: All businesses have to exchange documents with other businesses, organisations and/or individuals. This also compels everyone to continue along the MS Office path even if there are open formats/software available. Hence the crucial thing for OpenDocument is to gain *critical mass*
So all this will take time, but it's exciting that it's finally happening --- the industry has been stagnating for so long, this is long overdue.
That the format isn't supported in all office suites isn't anyone else's fault but Microsoft's. If MS was quick about this, they could easily incorporate the OD standard into an upcoming release of their Office suite. In fact, I believe they have one coming up, as luck would have it. Hell, include a patch to backport that feature to whatever Office (12-1) was called.
In this way, they could show governments that they *can* move to open standards, while still maintaining their (for MS) lucrative relationship. Instead, as per usual, we get stonewalling out of Redmond.
The plan does not require the use of Open Source software or OSes. It does require that the information be saved in a format that can always be read by anyone with a strong enough desire to read it. This distinction is often misunderstood, or misrepresented. Openness of the information that I create should not be a fad, it should be common sense. The last time I checked, I sometimes got garbled and misformatted output if the document if I tried to open was heavily formatted and used certain "features" from Microsoft Word. I should not have to own commercial products to communicate with my government.
I suspect the problem you describe is primarily due to the age of the data file and not some much with the data file being in a proprietary format. As the open file format evolves it's likely you will encounter the same issue.
No, not the same issue. If Access 1.0 had used an open format, even if I couldn't acquire a copy of a sufficiently old version of Access, I could always read the specification and implement a translator that converts to a newer format which modern software can read. Now, whether or not that's worth the effort depends on the circumstances, but it would be orders of magnitude easier than reverse-engineering the format, or finding some way to acquire the ancient software and the infrastructure needed to run it.
And, odds are, given an open format someone else will have already written the translator and published it as open source. Especially if the format in question was widely used.
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I'm a literalist. Look at a definiton of Fascism: "tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control." (Merriam-Webster Online, http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=fascist ) Now consider the effect of closed-source, proprietary formats, e.g. Micrsoft says it has unilaterally decided how its products will be developed and marketed, and how your content will be formatted in order for you to access it. Open standards are an expression of free-thinking people asserting their indpendance from such autocratic and dictorial control imposed by a single corporation.
Software freedom...I love it!
Is M$ flooding /. with all the FUD in here? I'm always amazed how many people don't understand M$ only wants money, while open-source is about freedom. These are two very different things. I'd rather be free and give my money to charity.
Software freedom...I love it!
The reason minorities and women are given preference in our current society is to undo hundreds of years of social and economic repression (please finish reading even if your knee just jerked). Racism against non-whites and sexism against women is still very much alive in America. The disenfranchisement of black Americans goes back to slavery, about as bleak a start as you can get. We just had the civil rights amendment in our own lifetimes. Do you think everyone in America who opposed desegregation and the women's movement simply gave up? There is a strong anti-non-white sentiment in America that manifests itself as complacency and an underlying acceptance of "white" being "normal" and "safe".
Affirmative action programs are not racist, they are anti-racist, as in, undoing the historical damage of racism. To give just one example, after WWII, white GI's were able to get affordable loans for homes and education, minorities were not. This allowed whites to accumulate home equity as well as knowledge which has disproportionally dispensed the nations wealth into their hands. Children of minority families today still feel the economic repercussions of racism and they would even if today's society was completely devoid of racism, which it is not. I norder for things to get better they are going to have to get a little harder for white poeple. This is because white people already have to much material wealth and control and so only stand to loose. Thankfully, we also stand to gain in our humanity so it should all balance out in the end.
I used to think about racism in similar ways to you I suspect. But then I actually did some research and discovered how little I actually understood racism and its effects.
White people do not notice the doors that are not closed to them.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
It meets their goals. Whether it's available to free software projects is irrelavent.
It meets *most* of their goals. One of their goals is that the format must be implementable by anyone. Free Software projects cannot use Microsoft's format, ergo it does not meet all of the requirements.
A non-issue as the format is being published by Microsoft.
Perhaps. Their Office 2003 XML formats include significant features that, while documented, are inextricably tied to other Windows components which are not documented. Open Document is significantly better in that respect.
Odds are that it's obscure. It's likely that there aren't very many people looking to convert.
But if it's easy to implement, it only takes one person with a spare weekend and basic development skills. If it requires reverse engineering, the pool of people who have both the time and the skill required is much smaller. The odds that someone has both the interest and the ability are therefore much smaller. I think you're being deliberately obtuse.
They've either already done it or don't care. Let me ask you this: Why do you still have data in Access 1.0 format?
I don't, actually. That was another poster. I do happen to have some stuff in Nutshell Database files, though. I haven't quite mustered the courage to look into reverse engineering the format yet, although I think it's a flat file database, so it's probably not too difficult. Why do I have them? Because at the time I had access to the software to convert them I (a) was a newbie who gave no thought to whether or not I'd be able to use tham later and (b) they weren't worth the effort. Then. They're actually worth more to me now than they were then, though only for their nostalgia value. States, on the other hand, are quite likely to have documents that sit in an archive for 50 years, ignored, and then need to be read.
Massachussets is demonstrating a great deal of intelligence and foresight here.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
This is just one step in the eventual commoditization of major software products. Eventually, because of open formats, the interconnected nature of the internet, and tightening IT budgets, there will be nothing Microsoft (or any other private company for that matter) can offer in a word processor to justify the price difference from Open Source alternatives. The same will be true for other types of software, such as spreadsheets, browsers, even operating systems. As a result, these types of "ninty-percenter" software will become commodities; each brand will be basically the same as every other brand, including OpenSource. And no one can compete with free.
Once this happens (and it already is, slowly), the software companies will have to make their money by creating "ten-percenter" software: highly specialized software contracted and built specifically for another company, or a niche market. To use an analogy, the "ninety-percenter" software market right now is like tract housing. Companies build products that they think people will like, and then sell them when the product is finished. The future of software design is much more like contract housing; people contact a company, tell them what they want in their product, and the company builds it for a contract fee, specifically for that customer. Both types of software development co-exist now, but soon the tract style will not be maintainable as a business model since groups of people are giving away tract houses for free.
Microsoft is struggling right now with the future of their products. Microsoft Office will soon be obsolete if MS continues their current business model, since there will be nothing to justify its high price. Right now, Microsoft maintains their pricepoint with vendor lock-in; but as soon as every major company and government is using open standards, MS Office will be just one choice out of several. I can see Microsoft Office being quite profitable in a commodity market, but Microsoft will have to add more than just office-suite productivity to their software. They have to offer more value than the next guy: in the form of tech support, or service contracts, or collaboration/version tracking software, or any of a number of things that would add value to the commodity. The commodity alone will not be enough.
This is a very good move by Massachusetts; in the long run, it will protect valuable data from vendor lock-in, and eventually foster competition in the office suite marketplace. Competition is always a Good Thing(tm).
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XML != open.
o n.html
Wikipedia defines XML: "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages. It is a simplified subset of SGML, capable of describing many different kinds of data. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different systems, particularly systems connected via the Internet. Languages based on XML (for example, RDF, RSS, MathML, XHTML, SVG, and cXML) are defined in a formal way, allowing programs to modify and validate documents in these languages without prior knowledge of their form.
One uses XML to 'define' a document format. The problem is that one could easily define a format (schema), permit royalty free-licensing, but 'patent' the schema/format.
Remember GIF?
MS XML formats have this problem. One, there are a couple licensing requirements. Two, the royalty-free license does *not* grant the licensee rights to use any MS patents that the document format may utilize. Even if one interprets some as the text as granting a right to the patents for certain implementations of MS XML, there's no reason to believe you have a perpetual right to those patents.
MS has some control over who can implement these formats, and for instruments of public policy, that is simply not acceptable.
MS is free to implement OASIS formats, because everyone is free to implement them. Governments are having to upgrade anyways--> DOC is being phased out. It's either switch to OASIS (ISO-approved), with multi-vendor support, and shipping software that supports it; or switch to MS Office Open XML, which hasn't been released yet, which *no* software on the market currently supports, which is not vendor neutral in implementation, and is not any kind of 'official' standard.
People use DOC over all the other formats because it has marketshare. MS Office Open XML has 0 marketshare right now. It has to compete on its merits alone, and a such, is failing.
Read here for more information:
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/why-opendocument-w
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell