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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."
While it will take more than days, I think that Microsoft will eventually come around and support OpenDocument. There's no technical reason that they cannot and Microsoft can't afford to let big customers get away. Once large companies and governments realize that they can get along just fine without Microsoft products, it will be even harder to get them back on the crack, so to speak. So I wouldn't be surprised if there are already betas running in Microsoft somewhere that support OpenDocument and they run on the Microsoft Linux Distro too!
Anyway, in the end, the customer is always right. So Microsoft will come around if OpenDocument gets any kind of real traction.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
One of the guys behind KOffice has just posted an open letter refuting a few aspects Alan Yates/Microsoft's criticism of open doc.
See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=163269&cid=136 37741
i .pl?OpenFormatMeetingSept2005
There is a recording of the Mass Technology Leadership Council discussing their reasons here: http://www.softwaregarden.com/cgi-bin/oss-sig/wik
Basically they're very afraid of proprietary document formats (and rightly so). Especially when they consider archival purposes. 20 years from now do you want to find a copy of Word '98 to be able to read old state documents? Right now I can go to the basement of Harvard and read law books from the 1800's!
They're also concerned about requiring the public to purchase expensive software from a single vendor in order to view "public" documents. They state time and time again what their requirements for a doc format are, and that if Microsoft were to offer one they would consider it. MS, unsurprisingly, does not offer one...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
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.
Massachussets stated reason for switching to the OpenDocument format is that it allows them to guarantee access to important state documents. However, my guess is that this is just a fancy sugar coating over the real reason for switching, and that reason is the cost of migrating to Office 12. There is a very interesting exchange in the MP3 of the recent meeting that the state officers had with various software companies in which, after nearly an hour of saying that the state didn't want to talk about procurement, one of the Mass. officers let the Microsoft team have it right between the eyes. Basically he laid out the costs that Massachussetts would incur in a switch to MS Office 12, and it was clear that the costs were much higher than a switch to OO.org.
Massachussets is going to have to switch document formats no matter what they do. The new version of MS Office 12 is going to have a completely new set of document formats that won't be backwards compatible. Yes, Microsoft has promised plugins for some of the older versions of MS Office that will read and write these new formats, and yes Microsoft has tools that allow for batch conversion of documents, but OpenOffice.org has this as well. The state of Massachussetts has an estimated 50,000 desktops, primarily running Windows 2000. In order to use MS Office 12 Massachussetts would have to upgrade the operating system on all of these boxes, and in many cases it would need to purchase new hardware to boot. Not only that, but Office 12 also has an entirely redesigned user interface which would require additional user training.
Do you see where this is going? Massachussetts estimates (using past knowlegde of similar Microsoft updates) that a move to Office 12 would cost $50 million dollars. A move to OpenOffice.org is estimated to cost an order of magnitude less ($5 million dollars). Heck, if Microsoft is going to force their customers to a new set of file formats, with a new UI, and a new operating system then its almost certain that OO.org on their existing operating system and using existing hardware will be less expensive. OO.org also forces you to use a new file format and it will require training, but Massachussetts won't have to throw an OS upgrade into the mix.
The reason that Massachussetts can get away with the switch is that they are big enough that they can simply mandate a file format and expect people that deal with them to make the switch. You don't argue with the bureaucrats. If they want their documents in OpenDocument formats then you simply find a way to send them OpenDocument formats. The fact that the software necessary to deal with the state government is going to be a free download is just a bonus. If Massachussetts required MS Office 12, or WordPerfect, or even LaTeX that's what people would send them.
One thing is certain, a lot of businesses and individuals in Massachussetts are going to find it necessary to download and install OpenOffice.org, and many of them are going to like what they find. It's almost certainly going to become much more difficult to sell new versions of MS Office in Massachussetts. After all, unless you are some sort of MS Office power user you are not even likely to be able to tell the difference between the two programs, and OO.org is going to be required for dealing with the government.
This sounds very similar to what Microsoft is doing with HTML/CSS/JS. Before they release a new browser, they state how CSS2 is "flawed," and therefore we wont support it (And I'm betting that they will add propritary functions that do a similar thing). The same thing happened with the half-assed support of pretty much any standards in HTML/JS...yes, they might have one or two parts that follow standards, but the rest is either proprietary, or a horrible "improved" take on the standards.
I'm sure MS will attempt to do the same thing to ODT files. They will make some fairly basic functions in Office stored in a "enhanced" form, which, ofcourse, only works in MS Office. Judging from past experiance, the "standard" files genorated by Office would be a horrible mash of invalid markup, useless elements, and namespaces that server no purpose; except to break compatibility with any other program. In their usual style, they will probally hide a series of options hidden under 12 dialog windows which are the only way to genorate an actual standard document. Not only this, those options would probally pop up a "scary sounding" warning when disabled, to stop the non-techies among us from changing them.
Just to back this up, look at the XML Word genorates for a document that only contains "Hello world!" (No, I'm not joking, check for yourself).