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Massachusetts' CIO Defends Move to OpenDocument
Mark Brunelli writes "A public hearing concerning Massachusetts' plan to dump Microsoft for OpenDocument featured a fair share of controversy as the state's CIO tried to fight off naysayers. Linda Hamel, the general counsel for the Massachusetts Information Technology Department (ITD), suggested that groups that oppose the OpenDocument file format standard might be influenced by Microsoft." We reported on the bounce back against the OpenDocument move this past weekend.
"Bottom line: OpenDocument is bloated. Just like we like things in government."
Most likly they think Word Processing IS Microsoft Word.
I think common sense would say that having a "common currency" in file formats is a good thing. But if it were me, and if I play CIO for a moment, I'd make DANG sure I get it right before converting millions of documents. Just one gotcha and ten years down the road you are left out to pasture - technically speaking.
.pdf in the near-term and see how these openDoc formats shake out.
I'd work more towards
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
The early audio recording of the two hour meeting between the CIO's office and various members of the vendor population including the idiot... I mean, the representative of Microsoft, is really amazing. If you haven't heard it, I suggest you do a little digging and find it.
The CIO did make one very interesting statement about money. $50M in order to get Office-12, because of license fees, OS and hardware upgrades, for something that cannot even be tested at this time.
In comparison, to roll out OpenOffice to every state employee, including training (which never seems to be in the pro-Microsoft column), $5M. Mostly because there is no hardware or OS upgrade requirement since OpenOffice runs on everything. Today. Now. Including using the document specification they really want, which Microsoft says they have no plans on supporting.
Fascinating. Foot, rifle, Microsoft pulls trigger.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
This line kills me: "OpenDocument file format standard might be influenced by Microsoft." Why?
It's currently reading as - "suggested that groups that oppose the OpenDocument file format standard might be influenced by Microsoft."
Of course the meaning is that some believe that the big backlash recently (with every "grassroots" group announcing their beefs with the move to OpenDocument) is the result of Microsoft lobbying, which isn't an inconceivable idea.
Later on in the press conference she goes on to assert that rain is wet and and that 2 plus 2 does indeed add up to 4. She did not, however, make any comments concerning what you get 4 of.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Being from Tax-achusetts, i am glad to see that the state continues to move this way. This saves tax payers money, which in the end benefits everyone in the state. But also it is the state realizing that they are doing something that will help allow easier (still far far from perfect) access to state records which we have a right too.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
I would think she'd lose all claims to credibility by making statements like that. For one, she's making an ad hominem (although not against a singular person in this case) argument by arguing that the groups are wrong because they are (allegedly) supported by Microsoft. That argument falls apart, logically, because someone could offer a simple counter statement of "so, why does that make them wrong?"
I do find it interesting to note that the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science is criticizing the move and I think they offer legitimate reasons for using Microsoft products-- that is, until OpenDocument supports the same braille readers and other screen-reader programs. If the blind state workers are using MS products and the other state workers are using OpenDocument, I'd think that might cause some problems. The article didn't mention any specific fixes for that, so hopefully they thought that one through. However, based upon the fallacious logic, I'm assuming they (or at least Ms. Hamel) don't think things through all the time.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
It would be nice to see one shred of evidence to support that claim other than their opposition to OpenDocument.
As the last article on this noted, there are a fair number of blind and deaf state workers who could not get by using OpenOffice. Not to mention that a fiscally conservative approach would be to use MS Office on older hardware due to its lower processor and memory consumption compared to OOo. Don't forget the added initial cost of supporting a totally new office suite at a time when the state has enough budget problems.
This seems like a high price to pay to stick it to MS.
We reported on the bounce back against the OpenDoc move this past weekend.
OpenDoc is not the same thing as OpenDocument. If you need to shorten it, you can say ODF.
Officials can't confirm, nor deny that companies that are using the OpenDocument format might or might not be influenced by Microsoft.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Not using OpenDoc _solely_ because it's advocates may be influenced by Microsoft is Ad Corporatum.
Attack the flawed logic and reasoning, not the corp that may have funded it.
What makes you think your tax rate is going down because of this manouver?
FSF have a lengthy and interesting report from yesterdays meeting
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Please present evidence that blind workers use Word in contexts outside plain text editing or simple formating captured entirely by RTF format.
You won't find any.
Let them use M$ and its fancy braille readers, etc., to work in plain text.
You're missing the point. The Mass. move isn't to OpenOffice, it's to OpenDocument. What they choose to run is a different story. OOo and Wordperfect, for example, plan to support. Microsoft only plans to import it, I believe, and that only recently. Microsoft if fighting the standard. The idea that this state government is moving to OOo is an extension of the MS PR machine. Get everyone worried about losing Office and an outcry will ensue. Nevermind the fact that they're locking themselves into perpetual licensing fees and a proprietary format. Hey, the vendor's benevolent so what's the harm, right?
More people, more companies, and more governments need to really stand on MS's neck on this and get them to support standard formats. MS doesn't want to because then they have to TRULY compete with other software. Now if Office is so great, why not just support the format? Why not say, "okay, we'll support it and beat you on equal footing!" The mark of a champion is that he will beat you at your best. MS wants to take out your quarterback's legs, get rid of the instant replay and challenge system, AND make you play on their home field before they'll even join the game.
When are people going to realize they are the software industry equivilents to rapists and pedophiles.
For details and analysis you can't beat Groklaw's coverage, including notes by two bloggers who attended the meeting.
Also note that the hearing was convened by a senator who seems to confuse "OpenDocument" and "OpenOffice" and "open standards" with "open source software".
"Never mind that every alternative to Office is currently buggy, slow, broken and lacking in modern features!" -I assume this was a typo.
Surely what you meant to type is: "Never mind that every version of Office is currently buggy, slow, broken and lacking in modern features!"
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Sorry to break up that little run of sarcasm to point out ahead of time; Almost every reply that I would automatically get to this post about the licensing of Microsoft Office 2003 XML schema license is to a great extent FUD. There is not really a terrible patent issue, all licensees get royalty-free rights to all Microsoft patents to allow using the schema freely. Granted this is GPL-incompatible since anyone distributing the result has to accept the schema license, and also the schema license has a BSD-style advertisement clause. These are hardly the earth-shattering taking-away-our-freedom-lets-sing-with-RMS issues though.
One notable thing to point out here is that OpenDocument actually has a similar IP issue, notice how you get a royalty-free license from Sun for the IP in that format?
Overall this is making an awful lot of noise considering that people are supposedly getting "liberated" from a fairly reasonable product here, despite it being from Microsoft.
Frankly, they could take a portion of that $45 million cost savings and dedicate it to making those blind- and deaf-user devices work swimmingly with OOo.... and still have enough to pay Manny Ramirez's salary next season, assuming he doesn't get himself traded to the Angels before then. ;)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
I think the obvious outcome of this and similar efforts will be that Microsoft puts all the actual content of Office documents in some sort of open format, and "extends" that format to support all the goodies such as fancy formatting, macros, Excel formulas, and so on. The extensions will be proprietary and for the most part not accessible to open-source programs, but the base content will be easy to get at.
Since Word is following Pages in its future approach to document formatting, a lot of those extras will be used by people who aren't necessarily trying to do anything fancy.
The end result will be that MS satisfies open format requirements, since you can get at the goods, but anybody who wants to work with the documents in real life will need Office. In other words, what we have today, with more documentation and more bureaucracy.
This Like That - fun with words!
Microsoft's position:
* Every new box pre-installed with Windows $100
* Every new box pre-installed with Office $200
* Having the option of following up an OS upgrade with an Office Upgrade that renders old file formats unreadable: priceless.
Everyone else's position:
* Looking for (and finding) tools to make OpenOffice compatible with any imaginable disabled-persons' enabling tool: probably as little as 10 minutes
* Off-sourcing production of a filter to convert current word document files to OpenDoc: a little embarassment
* Having government-provided and -required documents in a format that will never be submerged by near-simultaneous OS and Office Tools upgrades: priceless.
The cost to a society of having a monopolist control the format that its documents are published in is as desirable as it would be to have to continue paying the Gutenberg family for the privilege of having your book printed in the 21st century.
nuff said...ank
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
"...might be influenced by M$"
What an understatement !
"I do find it interesting to note that the National Federation of the Blind in Computer Science is criticizing the move and I think they offer legitimate reasons for using Microsoft products-- that is, until OpenDocument supports the same braille readers and other screen-reader programs."
We're use to it. Most people (F/OSS included) don't think of the handicapped. Even this forum with it's "if you see this image" doesn't.
oh there not going to go down, and i realize that, but hopefully the money may go to areas and programs that are underfunded.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
"Even as Quinn and Hamel sought to clarify their department's position on OpenDocument, (Sen.) Pacheco said there were still public concerns about users with disabilities and total cost of ownership."
Yup, the general public is *really* giving a flying $^(& about what some office drones, disabled or otherwise, are using...
You, sir, are either grossly misled, or are an intentionall MS shill.
It isnt about forcing people to not use MS Word - its about setting a fair, open, and public standard for the file formats used so that *everyone* can decide what tools to use. Making MS secret format the 'standard' *forces* everyone to use Word, unless MS completely and fully opens the specification for it.
People can use MS Word if they really think its the best tool for them - but they must have a way to read and produce the standard format. That can either mean MS adds native support in Word, or they use a third party plugin or convertor.
MS was recently quoted as suggested that 'customer demand' might drive their decision to support OpenDoc. Hello? MS? MA is a customer. They are demanding it.
Once MA stops buying new Word licenses, MS *will* add OpenDoc to Word, and MA can buy Word again. But MS will *only* do that if they are absolutely forced, as it sets a precedent, and once that ball starts rolling it will mean an end to MS lock-in. Word may still be popular, but no one will be forced to use it.
Yes, converting away from single-source vendor lock-in is hard. But the longer you wait, the harder it gets, and people have been blindly waiting for pretty long already. But once you finally get it over with it gets easier and less expensive in the long run, and switching software in the future (for whatever reason) is no longer a huge issue, since any choice has to support the existing standard format.
The issue is the OpenDocument format. Period. Wrap your mind around the fact that MA didn't want to lock themselves into a proprietary document format. They wanted an open format, one that didn't depend on any one vendor, and could be supported openly no matter what companies did or didn't do. If you go with .DOC, you are dependent on Microsoft, and who knows if they will be around in 50 years (and government do think in terms of decades). But an open standard, that will be around and anyone can write software to that standard. Anyone.
All Microsoft has to do to keep Office on everyone's desktop in MA is to support the OpenDocument format. Just like they can support HTML or PDF or whatever. It's just another Save As... option, and nothing more. But Microsoft refuses and so MA said Sorry, we want a format that will be around. This is Microsoft's stubbornness at work, and it is NOT about this software package versus that software package, or this company versus that company. This is about a document format only. And it is PRECISELY the sort of thing a government does best. If left up to the market, Microsoft would buy their way to a "standard" that they broke every now and then at their whim, citizens be damned unless they pony up some more cash.
My big complaint about OpenDocument Schemas are that they rely on RelaxNG that has poor support in developer tools. It also adds another layer of confusion for customers who are veeery reluctant to accept non-W3C standards.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I have run OOO 1.1.x on a P-II with 256MB, and it was not particularly slow.
From their website:
Windows
Microsoft Windows 98, ME, NT (Service Pack 6 or higher), 2000 or XP
Pentium compatible PC, 64 MB RAM, 250 MB available hard disk space
OK, I'm taking the 64 MB minimum with a grain of salt, but still this is pretty reasonable.
Using plain ol' text since 1968
Microsoftbot hate Open Document! Microsoftbot eat Open Document and shit out Word97 pellets! Microsoftbot angry with Massachussetts, and funny name state will suffer wrath of Microsoftbot, just like South Korean smarty pants will! Microsoftbot fucking kill Open Document! If you use OpenDocument, Microsoftbot come and tear your computer into many pieces! Microsoftbot unstoppable! Someday Microsoftbot will rule world, and all will bow to Microsoftbot's creators, and burn open source demons and Steve Jobs, because Microsoftbot think him weirdo hippy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If things were too efficient and easy to change, you could waking up in a police state overnight.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Wonder why they don't use HTML?
Sorry to shout, but come on guys, it's tough enough getting past the FUD from the Friends of Microsoft without mis-stating things...
...brig
The guidelines do not ban Microsoft's Office product, they merely state that the state of Massachusetts will need to use products which support OpenDocument.
If Microsoft decides to support OpenDocument, or a third party makes a Microsoft Office to OpenDocument converter which works well, the state of Massachusetts will still be able to use Microsoft Office.
They're just expressing a very appropriate interest in non-proprietary file formats, not saying they won't use the software.
Pretty important difference.
-- When I grow up I'd like to be a systems defenestrator.
Honestly, statements like "When are people going to realize they are the software industry equivilents to rapists and pedophiles." make you look like a raving loon. Such language in support of our "cause" is not helping one bit.
You may have valid points, but if you cannot put them into words without resorting to mindless arm waving, then just don't bother, we'll be better off!
TFA said "might be influenced" -- you're the one trying to change that to "the only reason."
Yes, but thats clearly what you wanted to imply isn't Linda?
There are big differences between being "influenced," "bought" and "owned" by someone. Microsoft could target certain influential groups, and take steps to ensure that their position is heard in preference to all others. This could be done without any kind of direct payment. "Bought" implies some kind of payment, and explicit or implicit quid pro quo. So turning "influenced" into "bought" is putting words into someone's mouth.
She is either desperate or a rookie. The comment about the groups opposing her influenced by MS was a newbie remark. No savy official would say something like that about a company that spreads its money around across the board. Also MS donated more to Romney's campaign then Obrien's (referring to her boss and the former governors race a few years ago.) As far as the specific groups complaining, she didn't sufficiently address their handicap needs. MS influencing them? Did MS give them a physical disability?
9 08812
She still han't make a good case for the move. I've posted previously why it isn't a good case. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=166793&cid=13
Sorry to disappoint the OSS crowd, but it looks like the elected senators in the committee are going to squash this appointed official's unilateral decision.
Citation from a blog of Andy Updegrove (http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?I D=1696):
Quinn: Let me talk about the disability community issue. The disability community has been denied access in many ways for many years, and we are committed to making sure that they get the consideration they need. Now I have had someone spending a significant amount of time since September 1 reaching out, and also working with the w3C, and we are just a few weeks away from announcing that we will have an answer to create accessibility. I have committee three times, first, to create a memo on the subject, two, have priority, and three [couldn't catch it]. Sun, IBM and others are working to create global accessibility standards. The structure has already been built into StarOffice, Mozilla, other products. We are a couple of weeks away from being able to put this in front of the disability community and the state.
I don't see the problem; OpenDocument is royalty-free, thus everybody can implement it without having to pay anybody. This lets everybody compete; the contrarywise of excluding someone from the competition just because he _can't_ race without following some oligarchic rules.
If paying zillions of dollars to those Big Companies isn't enough to have them snatch in a new feature, I wonder what shore we landed ...
... oh, well. Marketing & lawsuits' dep. People that are even able to _use_ handicapped people to reach their filthy targets.
42.
FTA: "CAGW has issued a statement that said the move to OpenDocument would incur unnecessary costs as the state government would be forced to convert 'more than one million current files to the new [OpenDocument] format.'"
I presume CAGW refers to Citizens Against Government Waste. But their statement on this doesn't jibe with the fact that most past documents in other formats would have to be converted to be compatible with newer proprietary formats as well. Also, it contains no comparison of the unnecessary costs incurred by not converting to an open format of some sort.
Nice that Massachusetts' officials are thinking about the future. But how about those things they can fix now? Why do they produce so many PDF files? PDF is as proprietary as any Microsoft Word format for print documents. Every time when Adobe comes out with a new PDF version we all have to install a new PDF reader. How about the people who chose not to use a PC? Ghostscript or XPDF? Read what the authors of these free tools have to say about PDF. And why should we constantly update software. I have better things to do. How about printers? Which ones support PDF? Why do I need extra software to print a file? Shouldn't a plain PRINT (or whatever it is on your favorite system) do the job? Plain PostScript Level I has been working since more than 15 years, except on Microsoft Windows which STILL cannot print a PostScript file on a PostScript printer with a simple mouse click. I do not care what editor people use. But the output has to work for me. Let's fix the obvious mistakes first.
Word processing is Word but ed is the standard text editor!
an ill wind that blows no good
"Once MA stops buying new Word licenses, MS *will* add OpenDoc to Word, and MA can buy Word again. But MS will *only* do that if they are absolutely forced, as it sets a precedent, and once that ball starts rolling it will mean an end to MS lock-in. Word may still be popular, but no one will be forced to use it."
There's just one tiny flaw in your lock-in argument, RTF.* You'll note that the reason Word's primary format got to were it was is because it was the default. Not because Word didn't have other formats it could save it's documents in. Now with that being said, here's the other shoe. All those "locked in" documents presently sitting in Word format, and not an easy way to convert them over to an open format. So open source has won a minor long-term victory. But let's not get too carried away.
*I didn't include TXT because you lose formatting there.
I was happy to read someone describing Microsoft Office as a 'legacy system'.
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
One of the things one should consider when evaluation Microsoft's true openness is the company's willingness to support their own technologies on competing plattforms. More than often - virtuall allways in the public debate, Microsoft seem to forget that they actually do supply products for another operating system: Mac OS X, and one metric for testing their willingness to share their own technologies outside of Windows is to take a closer look at their Mac products. For instance both Microsoft Messenger and Microsoft Windows Media Player significantly lacks in functionality and features compared to their Window versions.
Microsoft states in their response letter to MA:
In the case of XML support in Microsoft Office:mac 2004, only Excel supports the MS XML format, where support for XML formatted Word 2003 documents produced on Windows are completely lacking. It is also not possible to write XML documents from Word on the Mac. I blogged an article earlier this fall that explains in more detail how Microsoft's XML support is only Windows deep and what they have stated on this in relation to Office 12 for Mac OS X. Repeated questions to Microsoft on the fact that this "openness" is only Windows deep remains unanswered.
I have also posted a question to Microsoft's latest blog on the ability to save as XPS format in the upcoming Office 12 for Mac -- a question that remains unanswered.
Microsoft has been very active on Norwegian discussion boards lately where Microsoft employees have been operating under nicks posing to be normal discussion partipants rallying against the OpenDocument formats and promoting the openness of the MS XML formats well knowing that the country in Europe closest to follow follow Massachussetts is Norway. This following a public hearing where the government wants to standardize on open document formats in all communication with, and within the public sector, in addition to promote the use of open source code. Microsoft's response to this has been surprisingly vague compared to the response to the Commonwealth of Massachussetts.
The future is in beta
1) They're specifically authorized to use Microsoft software if they need access for the blind. This is provisioned for *explicitly* and all Microsoft has to do to make Office a viable choice is to support ODF or PDF. This can already be done with 3rd party software, anyhow. In short, the concerns they have were already addressed, so they don't have *anything* left to complain about. They have unspecific worries left, I guess, but any actual need they've been able to bring forth has already been taken care of as best I can see.
2) The group that showed up claimed to support mostly small businesses, but also a wide range. It was founded by Microsoft and two other companies. It mysteriously showed up with a copy of Microsoft's talking points. Funny that. It DOES cast doubt on their credibility for a few reasons:
a) Microsoft "innovated" the notion of astroturf campaigns. These are fake "grassroots" campaigns with a corporation's best interests at heart. I refer you to the DOJ trial where the findings of fact showed that Microsoft abused its monopoly position. These findings of fact have *not* been overturned, whatever happened to the rest of the case.
b) The "independent" organization presented here, without any disclaimers about conflicts of interest (which *should* be stated if they give even the appearance of impropriety), has always supported the Microsoft position. Both here, in anti-trust issues, etc.
In short, this strikes me as another astroturf campaign. What better way to get negative PR than by putting out stories of the poor blind users? And which of the blind users' concerns haven't been addressed already? What is there left but FUD?
Nothing about ODF prevents access for the blind. If anything, it enables us to make more programs for it, because we can access the documents directly for programs such as screen readers, braile boards, magnifiers, etc. and we can even GPL or BSD license them (something that can become thorny when code must interface with MS Office) to make them even more available to the disabled.
Now, no, merely being a Microsoft representative does not disqualify their arguments. Being an unannounced one *does* make them look sleazy, but their arguements have already been dealt with above, on Groklaw, and from a variety of other sources. There's nothing but FUD about the blind left to argue over, and I have yet to see even one single concern they have that has not already been addressed, even explicitly so in the plans. And yet people *still* go on complaining about it as though no one else had ever thought of it!
Why is it so hard for you to except that maybe people like MS Office? Let take this for example, Word Perfect has been around for years and use to be number 1. Remember Lotus Notes? MS Office came along, didn't get bundled, was expensive, and is now number 1. PEOPLE CHOSE MS OFFICE. MS Offered a cheap word processor product called Works. People didn't like it. They like Office.
" its about setting a fair, open, and public standard for the file formats used so that *everyone* can decide what tools to use. Making MS secret format the 'standard' *forces* everyone to use Word, unless MS completely and fully opens the specification for it."
That is just FUD Microsoft Office 2003 XML schema license.
But to address your premise, I can't find that anywhere in the state constitution or in any laws. I think that is a nice notion you have, but isn't the job of the CIO of the state. The CIO isn't supposed to promote/FORCE some obscure standards that may or may not succeed on the citizens of MASS (before you argue it, the standard currently is less then 3% of the Office market). The CIO should be implementing the most compatible solution for the citizens. Guess what that is... MS Office. When you have 95% + of a market you are the standard.
Open Format gets allot of press in our circles, but for the rest of society, its non-existent. The appointed CIO that made this unilateral decision is going to get stopped by officials elected by the people of MASS.
Maybe I'm stating the obvious. But can't we use a standard already in place. How about HTML or XML to do the formatting? You just need a browser to view the document. The compilers can be retooled for an office enviroment.
Life is not for the lazy.
Word Viewer 95? Word Viewer 97? Word Viewer 2003? Word Viewer XP? Word Viewer 12?
Or do I need to continually uninstall and install the various viewers in order to view the various format correctly?
"-rant-" :) Notice the $2 million Tuesday software audit. Any disgruntled employee can cause havoc. They can audit my winxp desktop but keep your grubby hands off the servers they are ALL GPL! Now beat it! They can pull out all your computers in an instant and you have to fight to get them back.
I don't read much in the TCO studies about the cost/risk/liability of lawsuits from this team. Can I buy insurance for this?
BSA
$2 million dollars
The GPL is this organizations worst nightmare. So HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
I just got a thought, I am going to make stickers for every monitor and PC that uses only GPL software. NO BSA (circle with slash BSA in middle). It will make the others careful about what they install and give me great satisfaction as I do my Walk About. Then I'll add a line item to the budget for each machine without a sticker. I'll let accounting figure out the rest.
Of course I FULLY agree with and support about MA's responsibility not to store public records in a proprietary format. 3 Cheers MA! You are fighting the right fight.
"-/rant-"
Whew that felt good
Gizmos Gagets For Ninjas
Where is the metaphor lost? Microsoft robs the young (startups) of innovation, capital, and technology. Bullying tactics, strangling companies of their suppliers, MS has done a lot of this. Perhaps my statements were over the top in a more civilized setting, but this is /. give me a break.
Either way, I stand by the idea that Microsoft is unethical, brazen, and devoid of good. Not because they are big and successful but because they have become so dishonestly.
I'll gladly contribute some time to help towards filling the gaps in.
I think you have OpenDocument and OpenOffice confused. OpenOffice is an office suite, OpenDocument is a file type. Anyone in the world is free to implement an OpenDocument reader/writer (I could go away now and do it). The point is that Microsoft are *refusing* to support ODF, as it will remove their office monopoly. As such, MS Office is not eligible for use in MA for goverment documents. Microsoft are taking this refusal, claiming that it means they *cannot* support OpenDocument (as they dont have time/people/the inclination) and therefore they are being discriminated against.
Turn the arguement around, MSXML is selected (Office 12 format). Oh look, MS Office is the only eligible choice. Tell me that isnt shutting out the competition.
ODF is an XML-based format. So when you ask "why can't we use XML?", the answer is "they are trying to!"
If you have Microsoft Windows running with screen reader software, can you use that screen reader with OpenOffice.org? How about Abiword? Can you use it with any other software, or just Microsoft software?
Want less bloat than opendocument? Why not save everything in LaTeX format?
The blind users having problems using OpenDoc formats I understand.
Did you mean {Blind and Deaf} together, as in people have both of those disabilities?
I do not I understand the problem with OpenDoc and being (only) deaf. If there really is one, can someone explain it, please?
(and if "deaf" shouldn't be included in the parent, no problem, mistakes are made. I'm curious, not trolling.)
Please don't interchange OpenDoc® and OpenDocument -
OpenDoc® was Apple's answer to Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE, which migrated to COM, DCOM, then strayed into being ActiveX) in Documents. It's a registered trademark of Apple Computers, Inc. It died many years ago (you can probably get the history in those Wikipedia articles - I didn't really read them), but I'm sure Apple still owns the trademark.
OpenDocument is an unrelated document format that came out of OpenOffice and OASIS, though again, read the Wikipedia entry for more, 'cause paragraph 1 is about as far as I got in it.
hmm probably shoulda tm'd Microsoft and Apple, as well as all those component models MS used, too... nah - too much effort
Later versions of Word claim to work with older versions of Word formats. The reality is if your documents are simple, you're probably in luck. If they aren't, documents in older formats can even lockup Word never mind not displaying right.
That is just FUD Microsoft Office 2003 XML schema license.
Is this even a coherent sentence? I assume you intended to babble some uninformed BS about how MS's new file format is open, even though it isn't, and cannot be implemented by other vendors since it stores vital information as encoded chunks of binary data within the XML.
But to address your premise, I can't find that anywhere in the state constitution or in any laws. I think that is a nice notion you have, but isn't the job of the CIO of the state.
Umm, the CIO is supposed to get the best tech at the best price. Just like everything else, he wrote a standard for what he wanted and is accepting bids. Just because the standard they decided upon is the Open Office format instead of a format only one vendor can bid on does not mean he is legislating. You might notice he chose the standard the entire European Union has also decided upon.
This is not rocket science. Just because you have been buying a special kind of patented electrical plug for years, does not mean you should not choose a new one when it comes time to renovate a building, especially when anyone can bid on the new one, while only one company can bid on the old one. It is common sense and business sense not to lock yourself into on supplier.
The CIO should be implementing the most compatible solution for the citizens.
I'm glad you said that. Who can run OpenOffice and write to that format? Anyone, the software is free and runs on all major OS's. Who can run Word and write to .doc? The subset of the population that is running Windows or Mac OS and can afford to spend $100+. I think it is clear which one is more compatible.
When you have 95% + of a market you are the standard.
Who cares if it is a de-facto standard. It locks you into one supplier which means you are screwed in purchasing negotiations. Only an idiot would go with a product available only from one vendor. If MS wants to be a supplier then they can meet the product specifications of their customer. Gee what a crazy concept, a supplier providing what the customer wants, and bidding against other suppliers. If MS does not want to bid and compete, well that is certainly there choice. So far your only argument has been, they should do what everyone else does because everyone else is doing it. What a great way to stifle all progress forever. Hopefully the legislators in MA will not be as blind as you are.
>>Linux: 128 Mbytes RAM
Recently there was an article that spoke disfavorably of OpenOffice because of it's enormous memory footprint, and slow load times. In light of that, I don't see how in hell someone could get away with 128MB RAM - even if it is all allocated to OpenOffice. Try loading a document of any but the most basic 2-3 page memo, and I think you might start running into problems.
if you think MS office is bloated, openofficeorg 2.0 is a blimp AND its SLOW.
"OpenOffice.org uses less CPU, less RAM, and far less Hard Disk space."
.. gosh) need to spend a lot of time on getting that memory footprint - or at least the startup time - down.
Have you ever actually RUN OpenOffice?
I have. It's excellent - but the startup time is really, really long. It takes up heaps of memory (something like three time MS if I recall). There are plenty of reviews elsewhere telling the details.
Disc space - OO - 188M, MS Office - 217M (I'm sure there is a lot in shared libraries somewhere, though). Hardly a point heavily in OO's favour.
Don't know about document size - one might hope OO is a lot smaller.
Using untruthful arguments to support a rant is silly, and self defeating. Don't do it.
The OpenOffice folk (Google, Sun
"Cats like plain crisps"
The problems with Microsoft's format, according to the CIO are:
They had the same complaints about Sun's patent offer, which caused to Sun to restate their patent offer into much broader terms.
Microsoft does have 95% of the market, today. Massachusetts is worried about access to their official state documents hundreds of years from now.
Mass is fighting the good fight on this one. I'm not sure who exactly is behind it, but, as a resident, I decided it would be best for me to contact them and let them know how much I approved. I just contacted the ITD (Information Technology Division) and let them know what I thought, and asked if there was someone better to whom I could send my thank yous. Our leaders need to hear from us when they're doing a good job.
hackshop.com - My tech hobby project hub
I support competition and standards but OpenOffice for the Mac is SLOW, loads X11, unstable, doesn't use the Mac interface at all, and causes kernel panics on my PowerBook and iMac!! I use MS Office for the Mac and it IS good software. But unless MS adopts the opendocument format as an import/export option I will not be in the game. This is horrible for us Mac OS X users.
Will slashdot ever drag itself into the year 2005 and provide the ability to edit posts?
I hope not. Then responsibility for what you say is lost.
The trolls and astroturfers are out in force on this one. Everybody should read this clear analysis of what OpenDocument offers MA that they can't get with MSXML.
Also, you can find out about the meeting too.
You are a pretty smart guy. Too bad you can't get basic things like gender down. "He" is a "She". HER name is Linda. You would have learned that if you read the first sentence of the article. Next time read the article you are posting about before actually posting. :)
"That is just FUD Microsoft Office 2003 XML schema license."
You are correct it was not coherent. In my haste I forgot to put a "." and typed the link incorrectly. It was a link to FAQ for the MS open xml format (not patent free, but free for anyone to use without royalties.) In other words you can use it, but can't change it on them. I think you will find it quite educational. It should have read like this.
"That is just FUD. http://www.microsoft.com/Office/xml/faq.mspx"
Anyways, you must not be following the case closely. The argument originally made was over fear that the ms format wouldn't be readable in 10 years. Not any of the nonsense you tout. It was today we saw a change and the cost came into play, but sadly she was disingenuous.
Her numbers for Office at FULL PREMIUM PRICE (without the bulk/volume and government discounts) would give her 125,000 copies of MS Office... sorry to disappoint her, but there just aren't that many office employees under her jurisdiction. Her MS numbers included a brand new top of the line premium computer + undiscounted premium MS Office licenses, but not for an Open Format solution. As we just discussed she also added a few extra licenses that weren't needed... 125,000 vs. a few thousand. Hmmmmmmmmm.
That's sweet and all, but intellectually dishonest. Office 12 will run on any XP machine out today. Not to mention they would be upgrading the computers as part of the IT cycle anyways. She was spouting FUD. Your side will never make headway against MS until you stop lying about numbers and make a case based on merits, not on fake facts. Memory hog anyone? That wouldn't be Excel with that title would it? Nope it wouldn't. OO all the way baby!
"Who cares if it is a de-facto standard."
The answer to that would be the vast majority of citizens in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who use the MS software and are happy with it (I'm one of them). The typical person does not want to go search the web for some "free" software they had never heard of just to read a government document. Not to mentions people's hesitation to install it and have it clutter up their computer with another program.
The state CIO's job is to serve the people, not the OSS agenda. It's an appointed position and not elected... in other words not accountable to the people. That is probably why we see a unilateral decision like this. And today, regrettably for Linda, is why the elected officials in the state feel the need to squash this on behalf of the citizens of MASS.
And how many "slaves" voted their masters into office? Or can vote them out?
>Why do you think the longest word you can spell on the top row of letters on a keyboard is "typewriter"?
/[qwertyuiop]+/i and (length $bigword length $_)}; print $bigword' /usr/share/dict/words
I know it was supposed to be funny but I got curious
$ perl -e 'while () {$bigword = $_ if
electroencephalograph's
To argue that something is "underfunded" would require an entitlement to the labor of others. Being entitled to the labor of someone else has a very specific dictionary definition: slavery.
No, that's being entitled to the unpaid labor of others.
You are not a slave, because you are rewarded very handsomely with the privilege of living in America. In return for your tax money, you get one of the world's highest standards of living, protection from the world's most powerful military, the guaranteed freedoms of one of the world's most liberal constitutions, access to some of the world's best education and medical treatment...
And you're not a slave. Really, you're not. Slaves were tied to their masters and could be executed if they tried to run away. But you're not a prisoner. Any time you get tired of all the benefits that paying taxes brings you as an American, you're absolutely free to go live somewhere else.
Does the format support secret capturing of changes so government documents can be sent out with easily recovered redacted text?
You're right, the state CIO's job is to serve the people, which is why this isn't about which software package to use, but rather which document format is acceptable. Using a proprietary, closed format from a single vendor is NOT an acceptable solution for "the people." You get an open standard instead, one that anyone can write to (including Microsoft, if they would stop being so stubborn), and then everyone is served. If Microsoft would stop playing games and include this format in Office, people could continue to use Office, and the open format would serve the state's interests.
This is outrageous. Who is behind the contraoversy? The borg at the top of this pane. M$ is the only one to lose, because M$ Word documents are supported by OO.o. The fact is, competition should force M$ to innovate, but competition seems to cause them to bitch. When Linux started gaining some ground, M$ did nothing to improve Windoze, it just attacked Linux. Of course it is their perogative to say that they are the best, but don't write a check if you can't cash it. The only somewhat good response from the Giant is that they restarted the IE project after Firefox was introduced. Of course, they ignored it for a great deal of time. Now the growth seems to have "stagnated", but the data is very inconclusive as of yet. Growth on par with Firefox is rare if not anomolous. Back to OO.o. Massachusetts is jokingly referred to by some of its constitutants as "the People's Republic of Taxachusetts". With a Republican Governor who inherited a bad economy, cost-cutting measures were needed. So, ditch the expensive, erroneous, bloated software in favor of a free Open Source solution. Hell, I'd move for a bill to make all government software to be open source. You can still buy and sell software, and it is still able to be profitable, it is just that no one has developed an outstanding business model. I applaud the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for upholding their title and supporting the citizens over big business.
You're spouting absolutely incorrect information all over this post. I'm going out on a limb here and I'm going to say that I know more than you on this topic. I happen to be a government official in MA, so I feel very comfortable saying that I know more than you about this. Just because a couple Senators say it, doesn't make it correct; it isn't their job to know everything about everything.
;-). Many current machines are running NT4, and, as they pointed out, there are still Win98 machines out there, too. XP won't run on those computers, and neither will Office 12. Using OpenOffice would give them more life from existing equipment, if they desire.
1) The State distributes public documents in PDF, not in Word docs. They occasionally will send Word and Excel files around to other government institutions, if they require a lot of data input, formulas, or validation. This *already* causes severe compatibility problems due to issues between versions of MS software.
2) Appointed positions have to be voted upon by elected representatives. There is your accountability.
3) The State has a CIO, and ITD, and various others to make these decisions and recommendations. If they ignore these people/departments, they are basically making them unnecessary, and should justify why they're spending the money for nothing.
4) The State does have several tens of thousands of desktops. Every municipal government has several State machines to do voter registration, police queries, and other functions. You have things like the Registry, with their many thousands of machines, you have courts, DOR, DLS, DET, etc. So yes, there are a very lot of desktops out there under State control.
5) The State tends to run with old computers until they do a full replacement, or they die (it seems whichever is longer
6) You forgot support agreements on all that hardware/software. Not that all of it will be purchased with those agreements. It depends on whether they're doing RFP, going with the bid list under existing contract, etc.
7) People aren't going to be worried about those things, at all. They had to install something to read all those PDFs on nearly every State and Federal website. If they're downloading tax forms, those are PDF, for example. People certainly don't get all worried about installing some random software, either.
The elected officials are talking about squashing this likely because some MS agent bent their ear on it. If you read some of the things that people said against using OpenDocument, and requiring Word, you see how unfounded many of those comments really are. All the talk about disability and accessibility was quite interested. Software had to be specially written for Office because of it's non-standard nature, for example.
If this initiative gets shot down, I think you'll find that it had everything to do with MS influence, and nothing to do with worrying about the People.
Ah, Massachusetts. Home of the Big Dig, the Red Sox, the Free Software Foundation, M.I.T., and most importantly NO MICROSOFT!
The day Microsoft puts their foot in the door is when they can move that big GNU out of the way.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
I looked at your company's website, and it looks like you are pretty entry level... in any case I doubt you are an employee (other then a random consult, probably for Ferdi up at the high school, hardly a state employee).
.doc format (actually MS's format is more open). Almost nobody in the general public has heard of your open format crap. After everyone's bout with spyware they are hesitant to download software. Maybe not 2 years ago, but today people are... certainly not some random program that they have never heard of before.
In response to your 1-7 bullets.
1.) - That simply is crap. Word Pad (and hundreds of other editors) can open pretty much all MS Word files (Macros aside, and they wouldn't be used in public documents). Formatting may be lost, but you the content is still there. MS Docs are large because they offer backwards compatibility for a few generations. Not to mention 2003 opens all the documents from 97-on. You are spreading disinformation here.
2.) - Romney appointed this position. "elected representatives" is wrong. 1 person, the governor, that is accurate. The very nature of my statement "appointed" implies an elected official put them there. However, the CIO is not accountable to the people, they are accountable to an elected official. Nobody knows who appointed this yahoo, look at yourself. You didn't even know. There is no accountability to the people.
3.) - No. What happened is the CIO made a bad decision, and due to checks and balances state officials stepped in. What if the CIO woke up this morning and decided to move the state back to DOS? Pretty stupid, huh? Well it would be important to allow the elected officials to step in and stop it. This is a similar case.
4.) - Clearly you haven't followed this case. For one, it isn't referring to any random state computer. Secondly, tens of thousands are not 125,000 (10,000 are not even being talked about for THIS upgrade anyways). Thirdly, the majority of the registry machines run their own software and don't need any office, a pdf viewer at most, courts aren't in this discussion (the rmv isn't either for that matter), and frankly your list is uniformed and just FUD. Your incorrect generalizations, your numbers, are all just pulled out of your ASS.
5.) - This is one of your more stupid points. NT 4 is over a decade old. The handful of machines using it would be upgraded soon anyways. Not only are there very FEW, but even FEWER that are actually used as a desktop where people need office solutions. Win98 is in the same boat, and most of those got upgraded to Win2k so incredibly fast it's not even funny. Win98 was very unstable, and certainly hasn't been left around for a decade. Anyone who is using 98 is going to be upgraded soon anyways, and frankly is so neglected they probably wouldn't get the open format software to begin with. But more specifically to the absurdity of your point.
Here are the hardware specs for OO and MS Office 2k3. The hardware requirements are virtually identical.
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs _20.html
http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/product.asp x?view=22&pcid=3c3bd1bb-5595-4512-bcca-f764770e1d7 1&type=req
6.) - I disagree, but let's take it as accurate just for fun. It still doesn't even out her fake numbers. Nice try though.
7.) - People are familiar with Acrobat. They use it all day at work, and it's all over the internet TODAY. PDF's are just as common (if not more so) as word files. It is a proprietary format owned by Adobe, just like MS owns the
As far as elected officials getting their ear bent. MS gave Romney more money in the last Election then Obrien. The money trail stops at the CIO's boss' front
When the hell did that happen? I guess I haven't used any really recent versions of Office, then. Although I've installed 2K3 on a customer's machine recently. Guess I just wasn't paying attention.....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Unfortunately, a lot of punters will make the same mistake. Those who Microsoft recruits against open source in general, will flame that.
I read Sun's response saying "[OpenDocument is] on its way to being an ISO standard" and I just realised, that if it was called ISODocument rather than OpenDocument then that misinformation would loose traction. Many managers who really dont know much about this wierd "open" stuff, have been comfortable for a long time with ISO.
I just thought I'd address a few of your arguments here, to clarify a few things.
That simply is crap. Word Pad (and hundreds of other editors) can open pretty much all MS Word files
You're the one spouting crap. MS Word can't even open all MS Word files and likely nothing ever will be able to since the spec is not published. I have plenty of Word files I have inherited that cannot be opened by any currently available software (only be old versions of Word that are unavailable). That is annoying for my company's private records. It is wholly unacceptable for documents owned by "The People."
Here are the hardware specs for OO and MS Office 2k3. The hardware requirements are virtually identical.
Why don't you read your own links, specifically the supported OS's. Also, the link you post is for Open Office 2, The first version is still available, supports the same format, and has lesser requirements.
PDF's are just as common (if not more so) as word files. It is a proprietary format owned by Adobe, just like MS owns the .doc format (actually MS's format is more open).
You are misinformed. PDF is an open, published, unencumbered standard with multiple readers and writers. 50 years from now, if someone needs to read a PDF, and no readers work on any current OS, they can read the spec and implement one, or a conversion to a format that is supported. DOC is a closed, unpublished, undocumented, intentionally obfuscated, has dozens of versions, and some versions are patent encumbered. That is a big difference.
After everyone's bout with spyware they are hesitant to download software. Maybe not 2 years ago, but today people are... certainly not some random program that they have never heard of before.
OK, who is it that is so afraid of spyware they will refuse to download a program from a government website? Do tell.
Interesting enough its democrats looking to keep them, because its best (at least at this point) for the citizens.
That is your opinion and a pretty weak one. So far your arguments for using word have still been, "everyone else does." Gee great logic. OpenOffice can read and write .doc file adequately right now and supports the state's preferred format, and is free and is open source so modifications to it are subject to competitive bidding. Word costs money, is closed source, does not support the preferred format, and is only available from one supplier (one known to criminally abuse their market position). Are you going to provide any arguments for Word, or are you just going to continue to spout uninformed technical FUD and ad hominem attacks. You're pathetic. I hope MS is not paying you too much for you astroturf, your arguments are sure not worth much.
It was a link to FAQ for the MS open xml format (not patent free, but free for anyone to use without royalties.) In other words you can use it, but can't change it on them. I think you will find it quite educational.
Do a little research on a site not run by MS. First the license forbids GPL programs from using the format. Second the format relies upon binary data encoded in the XML header that is completely undocumented. Putting "open" in the name does not make it open and is just a speaking point for politicians and a way to propagate this FUD you are spreading. No one with any technical knowledge has been fooled by this.
The argument originally made was over fear that the ms format wouldn't be readable in 10 years.
...which it probably won't be since it is still in an undocumented format and old Word files currently cannot be read by any program available on the market today.
Her numbers for Office at FULL PREMIUM PRICE
OK, let me nip this in the bud. Whatever the cost of Office it will be more than zero dollars right? So if we are comparing the cost of upgrading to a new version of Word (which eventually all users will have to do if they stick with .doc) and the cost of training and support for that versus the cost of a free office suite plus the cost of training and support for that, you are claiming that the Word option will be more cost effective. Now keeping in mind that the state can take bids from lots of different companies for training, support, and upgrades to Open Office, whereas they have to pay whatever MS decides to ask for the same for Word, you are still claiming that Word will be cheaper? At what point did the nice doctors drill that hole in your head?
The answer to that would be the vast majority of citizens in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who use the MS software and are happy with it (I'm one of them).
Most users don't even know what word processor they use and don't really care. For that matter most users don't have any word processor on their computer. If they want to send .doc files to the state, fine Open Office can read and convert them. If, for some reason, they don't want to download Open Office, they can request documents in a different format like .doc, or PDF and the state can still make those for them if they feel the need. And if you want to use Word and you still want to exchange office files with the state, well you're a customer, just ask MS to implement that format or buy a program to convert from a third party.
The typical person does not want to go search the web for some "free" software they had never heard of just to read a government document. Not to mentions people's hesitation to install it and have it clutter up their computer with another program.
They don't have to search for it, the state can distribute it themselves on their own server along with the files. I'd guess most people would be happier to download a free program from the state than have to pay hundreds of dollars to buy one just to read files they've already paid for with tax dollars. As for "cluttering up their hard drives" take a look at the footprint of MS Office vs. Open Office. One is a lot more clutter than the other, guess which one.
The state CIO's job is to serve the people, not the OSS agenda.
Hahahah, yeah it is a open source conspiracy. They have an "agenda." Open Source is a feature, plain and simple. It means programs can be modifies and are always subject to competitive bids. That has little to do with this case. The state has mandated an open standard. That is just common sense.An open standard serves the people, saves them money, and insures availability of documents for the future. It also happens to mean you need to convince MS to support that standard and/or get a third party to write a converter if you want to do business. Boo hoo. The same is true for WordPerfect's format and any other. Your assertion that a state should always use the same, closed, for pay, software that you do is foolish and short sighted. Get a clue already.
You really didn't make any good points... so I'll try to be brief.
-I said HARDWARE requirements, because that is what was discussed by the CIO... the machines not being powerful enough to run office. SOFTWARE, specifically Windows 98 came into play by you guys, and I sufficiently squashed that FUD in my other post.
Also, this plan is for two years from now. So OO 2.0 is what would be used. Either you are swimming in information that is over whelming you, or just disingenuous. I think it's a little bit of both.
-I didn't say PDF wasn't open, I said that MS's format was more opened. And it is. AND Adobe owns the patent, its theirs and you can't change it. You can use it, but can't change it on them. Read both of the licenses and you will learn something.
You are operating under the uninformed notion that MS Office 12 is a closed format, it is not. It can be used royalty free. It is also published and documented in great detail for anyone to see or use. Read my other posts to get links and educate yourself.
-First of all, at no point will the government provide downloads to software. Maybe links to another site that will give you software, and that is were the problem comes in.
As far as "who"? Your mother. What the hell do you want me to do? List people? I was speaking directly about the average end-user that I reference a number of times in my posts. Spend some time reading trends and you will learn that people are starting to get very scared about ID theft and spyware. The rate of downloads on sites like downloads.com has dropped drastically in comparison to what it use to be. People just don't download anything anymore.
-There argument for Word is this. It is a better program, and as the handicap people said, it offers accessibility tools that you don't get with any others. Recently Slashdot had a posted article that showed that OO 2.0 is slower and uses more memory then Office, specifically Excel. How about that for an argument?
You newbs/zealots make me tired.
I said HARDWARE requirements, because that is what was discussed by the CIO... the machines not being powerful enough to run office. SOFTWARE, specifically Windows 98 came into play by you guys, and I sufficiently squashed that FUD in my other post.
If by squashed you mean, demonstrated that you don't know what you are talking about. .DOC is only really readable and writable completely by Word. Only certain versions of word are available for sale and they only run on certain platforms. Thus at least those minimum hardware standards for Word+the right version for Windows need to be met for a proposal using .doc format.
Using the Open Office format, the minimum requirements of machines are much lower because you can use any number of word processors and OS's with lower hardware requirements. Abiword+Linux, for example, will keep current hardware viable when their is no .doc solution to do the same. Further, even using the same OS, their are several programs with much less hardware requirements than any available that read/write the .doc format. What part of this are you failing to understand?
Also, this plan is for two years from now. So OO 2.0 is what would be used.
No, open document will be used. It may be using openoffice 1, 2, staroffice, abiword, wordperfect, koffice, or any number of other programs for a particular desktop, as needed.
I didn't say PDF wasn't open, I said that MS's format was more opened.
What the hell is "more opened?" You said "PDF is proprietary". This is completely untrue. It is an open, approved standard that is fully documented and has been implemented by dozens of companies and organizations. Word is not open, not documented, and in fact as obfuscated as possible to try to stop reverse engineering. It is not even a single format, but a whole group of them that are not compatible with one another.
AND Adobe owns the patent, its theirs and you can't change it.
PDF is not patent encumbered. It is trademarked, which is to say, you can change it all you want, but only Adobe is allowed to decide which documented format is called "PDF." You can take the PDF spec, change one thing in it, and call it "Bob's document format" and Adobe can do nothing about it. More importantly anyone can make readers and writers and will be able to do so in the future. Claiming otherwise is uninformed hogwash as is claiming that any of the Word formats are open or unencumbered. You're just full of shit on this one.
You are operating under the uninformed notion that MS Office 12 is a closed format, it is not. It can be used royalty free. It is also published and documented in great detail for anyone to see or use. Read my other posts to get links and educate yourself.
Too bad you are completely wrong. The format is not fully documented, vital formatting data is stored as a binary in the header, and patents restrict use of the format for many types of programs including all GPL software. Gee that would not be because OpenOffice is GPL would it? Get a fucking clue. The so called "Open XML" word format is XML that avoids the benefits of XML by encoding chunks of binary data and using patents to remove all the benefits of having a documented format. The most open thing about it is the fact that they put open in the name, because it is not open it is closed.
First of all, at no point will the government provide downloads to software. Maybe links to another site that will give you software, and that is were the problem comes in.
He asserts. Traditionally that is followed up by some support, or is that just your opinion that you pulled out of your ass?
Spend some time reading trends and you will learn that people are starting to get very scared about ID theft and spyware. The rate of downloads on sites like downloads.com has dropped drastically in comparison to what it use to be. People just don't
Have you ever read any of Frank Herbert's stories involving the Bureau of Sabotage? That is exactly the premise of the stories. Because efforts to eliminate red tape made the government far too effective (and powerful), a government agency is set up to sabotage the efforts of the other government agencies. Instead of red tape keeping the government tied down, they have their efforts sabotaged from within. The ultimate separation of powers, as it were.
Some people have day jobs... mine happens to be in government. Some other people apparently do not interact with the public, or with users - for example: you. You're quite misinformed about most of your points, and outright wrong about others. I'd be wrong to say you know nothing about it, but you definitely fit the category of "knows enough to be dangerous".
1) Wordpad cannot do the formatting or scripting of any MS Word document. It also cannot open OpenDocument or WordXML. Also, MS Office docs are large because they are OLE memory dumps. It has nothing, at all, to do with compatibilty. It lets the programmers be lazy, and has the side benefit of fast loading documents.
2) The CIO, and ITD, do not report to the people as their function is not to provide service to the people. Their responsibility is internal to the government. However, since their policy effects how the public interacts with the government, it is even more important than a typical IT department. Also, if I was so inclined to care who appointed the CIO, I could've looked up the public record.
3) The CIO made the best decision concerning the data that it was generally possible to make. The CIO and ITD do not gain by getting rid of the MS format documents. They have no stake in what format gets used any more than anyone else. Moving to DOS across the board would be pretty stupid, but it might also be the best decision for some circumstances. They aren't really that similar of cases, anyway.
4) If the State standardised that new electronic documents are to be in a certain format, then it effects everyone that works in, and with, the State. BTW - there is more to the Registry than clerks and a few officers, too, and they don't do nearly everything through their custom system.
5) NT4 is still commonly used on State machines, and likely will be until those computers stop working. Also, many municipalities still have NT4 machines, and they need to communicate with the State, too. If the State starts sending documents in OpenDocument, the cities and towns need to be able to read and write them. That's the only reason that a number of municipalities keep Office around. You have a bad habit of assuming that the State does regular hardware upgrades and such; they don't do that across the board. Also, hardware specs for Office 2003 are irrelevant, you need to worry about Office Vista. *Those* hardware and software requirements are substantially higher.
7) People are familiar with clicking the link that says "click here to download the program to view this file". PDF is also an open format, so anyone can implement it. That's why you can do things like click the "Print to PDF" button in OpenOffice, or any number of other applications. The MS format is heavily obfuscated and encumbered by copyright and patent. OfficeXML is *less* so, but still is not open. Besides, people do download and run any little stupid crap thing... that's what keeps all the repair shops in business, and also one of the largest driving factors in new PC sales. They'll certainly download the thing from the link next to the OpenDocument files.
You really don't know any of the important facts on this. You don't know how average people act, you don't know about the formats, and you don't know how the State operates. You obviously don't work for or with the State, and likely have little interaction with government, at all. You want to give reasons why choosing a new format is bad, then give real reasons.
I work in a corporate environment, and we use MS Office for pretty much everything. I actually quite like Excel and Word, and have copies of them at home on my PC and Mac.
Having used Word since the days of Word 4 on the Mac, it's clear to me that the format has changed quite a lot over the years. That's evolution, and features are added.
"No bad thing," most would say. And I agree for the most part.
But when I try to open a really old Word file, the formatting is mangled, features are lost and I generally have to recover the ASCII text and re-create the file.
That's with Word. Excel is generally a lot better at this (in my experience), probably due to the highly structured data.
I'm under no illusions that a file that exists today in Word may not be readable in years to come. I believe that it almost certainly won't be - you just have to go far enough down the road for support to be dropped.
Any government should be able to produce documents *years* after they're originally written. That presents difficult storage requirements that most users never have to deal with. What format will text files use in 20 years, or 50 years? No-one knows, but people in government IT will be expected to convert old documents to it. The best way to plan for that is to use the most open formats available now. That means going to open, fully documented standards.