Trimarco Confirms Mass. ODF Support

Andy Updegrove writes "After Peter Quinn resigned, only two brief statements -- both from spokesman for Governor and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney -- were made to the press regarding whether Quinn's OpenDocument format policy would survive. Both were vague, and both spoke only of the "rules not changing", leaving ODF supporters worried that ODF would be swapped out for Microsoft's XML Reference Schema, even before its expected approval by Ecma. But today, in a private meeting with ITD General Counsel Linda Hamel, Secretary of Administration and Finance Thomas Trimarco assured her that Peter Quinn's departure "will result in no change to the Administration's position on the ODF standard." Trimarco is the public official that will supervise whoever Quinn's replacement will be until after the deadline for the new Massachusetts' policy is to become effective."

Comments

No change on ODF

[FukYa]

It doesn't matter. Once the clueless Mass. officals responsible were persuaded to let Microsoft's mutated pseudo-open version of ODF into the picture, rather than insisting on the one truly open standard, they basically gave away the farm. This action by them will prevent OpenOffice from becoming a seriously used software by the state, no doubt. No one in the tech industry seriously believes that Micosoft's version is *really* necessary other than to perpetuate their monopoly. I just wonder if this decision was the result of actual cluelessness or was it in fact corruption on the part of the Mass. officials.