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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."
Sure you have alot of names there ... Bash Microsoft ? Sure they're all keen to give one to Microsoft.
Real support doesn't mean by name it means by implementation, what can you do with an document in the OpenDocument schema ? Answer read it in OpenOffice and maybe in a few other very obscure packages with even less market presence.
I'm familiar with GPL licensing and it is quite restrictive if you're in a private enterprise. Microsoft has made numerous statements about the Office XML schema license agreements and patents and have publicly assured people it is in their belief the license is open enough to be used within the majority of GPL projects.
But again this is really a matter of choosing sides not based on technical or legal arguments but based on whether u want to sock it to Microsoft or not. Me I wouldn't advise any company that is currently licensed to use MS Office to dump office and migrate all their documents to something else purely because I think it'd be a waste of time and money. If they want their documents to be in an open format that can easily be read by other systems I would recommend they save documents in XML.
If I was asked to give advice to a new company on a shoe string budget with a need for an office package I may steer them towards Open Office.