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Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go
Andy Updegrove writes "Massachusetts has appointed ITD COO Beth Pepoli as the acting CIO of the Commonwealth. At the same time, the Governor's Communications Director, Eric Fehrnstrom, has made the clearest statement yet that it is ODF that the new CIO will be implementing: 'There have been no changes in the commonwealth's published OpenDocument rules, and we are still on track for a January 2007 implementation.' We reported on the resignation of Peter Quinn in December.
I didn't RTFA, but FWIW, ODF was nearly FUBAR.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Umm, a casual observer point of view is MS Office doesn't follow OpenDocument formatting so by saying the state will comply with ODF, they are giving MS the finger.
Actually, ODF is an attempt to maintain sovereignty and further separate state and corporation. By enforcinf the Open Document Format as the states choice, they guarantee that at any time in the future should older documents not work with current versions of software, that they as the state have the ability to modify existing open source code to ensure that older documents can either be converted to newer versions easily or will at least be accessible regardless of a corporations intelectual property, their development cycle, etc.
It just maintains an oprganizations ability to access their own documents without waiting for a corporation to create some sort of backwards compatible solution on THEIR timeline rather than the states timeline.
All in all a solid decision in theory. How it is implemented however can be an entirely different matter but conmsidering the intelligence and forethought that went into making this decision in the first place, it seems that implementation should be equally well thought out.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Groklaw has the skinny, and a comprehensive history.
What it means for the commonwealth of Massachusetts: sovereingity.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
"Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go"
I need help! I understood that!!!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Check out www.groklaw.net, which has been covering this and the M$ fud about it, as well as the SCO stuff. Basically, ODF is an open standard produced by a consortium of companies and released for public use with no patents, license fees or other encumberances. M$ could add support for it in a heartbeat (though it may not support all their bu...features) but is refusing to do so as that would place them in competition with the various other office suites that do support it -- and they might not win that one. After all, several of the suites that do support it are free as in free beer, as well as in free speech. M$ is responding that we should use their "open" (but not really) new xml format that they don't even support yet, and which has various legal problems for implementors. Peter Quinn, the CIO who used to have the job, quit because of an M$ funded witchhunt that got him a lot of bad publicity and negative attention. Of course, he was later found to be guiltless, but that little retraction only made it to page four, rather than page one where the accusations were made... See groklaw for more detail.
OpenDocument is a published set of standards for office-type documents.
This differs from the Microsoft Office formats in that they're fully documented, legally unencumbered, and reasonably easy to make use of (something the MS Office formats are, in spite of repeated claims of being "open", have never actually been in any substantive way.)
This is important to the Commonwealth (= State) of Massachusetts as it recognizes it will need to be able to read it's digital files for decades, indeed centuries, into the future. MS Office and like applications have proven to be unable to read documents written by versions only a few years old.
However it is hoped that by adopting a non-commercially-controlled standard files will be able to be read by applications yet undeveloped, from any vendor or source, without legal complexity.
The other advantage is this also "levels the playing field" for all other applications by breaking the MS Office Format lock, and will thus enable government entities and those they interact with with stop paying the "Microsoft Tax".
Microsoft has complained that this format excludes their products. It doesn't, they can develop a converter the same they have for all of the other competing formats their products read & (sometimes) write to.
Microsoft has also taken steps to get their formats also set as a standard. Whether whatever ECMA eventually publishes is actually useful is an open question but has been clearly driven by this situation.
Microsoft has also employed their PR & lobbying arms, having front organizations distribute disinformation about OpenDocument, it's effects, goals, etc.
The most visible supporter of Massachusetts adopting OpenDocument was a civil servant, Peter Quinn.
He was recently investigated for possible misuse of funds. This story received unusually prominent coverage by the leading local newspaper, on their front page.
The without-cause finding received little coverage but the employee decided he wasn't interested working under this level of personal attack and has left civil service.
The State Governor is about to run for US President and has a history of w ^H h ^H o ^H r ^H i ^H n ^H g accepting campaign contributions from interested parties, then making dubious appointments and policies.
It was widely suspected the Governor would be announce a convenient policy change after Peter Quinn left (costs to run for President!)
This story is that the policy won't change. Or at least, that is the story today. How aggresively the policy is implemented is another question, or if this policy will even stand once general attention to it has waned.
The other good news is that many other levels and jurisdictions of governements have identical concerns about using MS's formats and are themselves considering alternatives, open formats, etc.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.