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MA Senator Decries OpenDocument Decision
An anonymous reader writes to mention a ZDNet article on Massachusetts senator Marc Pacheco's OpenDocument study. The report blasts the decision to switch to the OSS-friendly document format, saying the state's IT division didn't have the authority to make that decision and has disregarded the needs of disabled citizens. From the article: "'The process, quite frankly, was driven by one individual in a very powerful position (Kriss) issuing a memo to an individual in a less powerful position (Quinn). Then he was told to get it done and forget about any obstacles,' Pacheco said. Although OpenDocument is not yet widely used, other government entities, including Belgium, have expressed interest in OpenDocument as a standard as well."
You are witnessing ignorance when someone claims a format is insufficient because a suite of applications supports more functionality.
The real irony is that someone will probably write a plug-in for MS products to use OpenDocument anyway.
Microsoft's eager to offer plug-ins for nearly any other proprietary file format. It just seems that the second someone tries to give something they worked on away for free, Microsoft starts criticizing it as being too slow for the user.
And what's wrong with that? Happens all the time. You put a person in a powerful position and they make executive decisions. They are busy so they delegate it to someone else. I'm waiting for the reason that this was a bad move. Do you expect a board to discuss and delegate on every issue down to what file format is used by the government? Do you want the process to require that much time and resource?
Nobody's crapping bricks when the sewage administrator is mandating standardized units being used on reports for the city's waterways and sewers now, are they? Won't somebody please think about the vertically disabled people that like to report their height in centimeters, not inches so that it's a larger number and they feel taller?
<sarcasm>My god, the state's IT Division is trying to advise the state government on what file format to adopt. What is this world coming to?</sarcasm>
After delivering his speech, John Winske shook hands with Steve Ballmer & was seen struggling to drag away a visibly overladened burlap sack with a giant green '$' on the front of it.
My work here is dung.
Bet you'll see a contribution from the industry, perhaps laundered through an astroturf organization of some kind. Or maybe they've gone back to the old fashioned envelopes full of $100 bills.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Microsoft Office has built-in help for people with disabilities, such as voice synthesizers, special screen readers and enlargers, Winske said. But he said OpenDocument-based products do not yet.
... but when it does ... it will be standardized ... reusable ... and in the long run more useful than the crap MSFT slapped together.
Keyword being yet
Campaign finance records show that those state officials who most vocally opposed the plan received campaign contributions from Microsoft lobbyists. For instance, state Sen. Marc Pacheco, who held hearings on the move to OpenDocument Format at which he voiced opposition to the plan, received $600 in campaign contributions from Microsoft lobbyists over the past three years.
? action=print
-- http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource.html
Sure, $600 is only a token, but its the thought that counts.
So how would one go about finding what monies may have transferred from Microsoft to Senator Pacheco or to the Disability Policy Consortium? (Adjusts tin-foil hat...)
My apologies for copying ideas of another poster I've seen post on this subject before, but here it goes. When it comes to reading computer file formats we are all disabled. No human can easily read a computer file format. That's why formats with actual standards are so important. So that we can all have equal access to the information stored within those files. Sure there may not be screen readers available right now, but if there is a market for them (and there is), then they will come. Especially if these formats come into wide use. Also, these accessibility tools will be much better because they know how to read the format. They don't have to struggle through and hack like crazy, just to make them work. They could even make an entire word processor specifically for the disabled, made to work with the abilities they have. A blind person doesn't need an interface like everyone else does. They need a completely different tool to compose documents than the rest of us. A standard format would make these tools easier to develop.
Another note. I thought screen readers just read the text on your screen, regardless of what program is displaying them. I guess I was wrong about this, since Accessibility seems to be a big issue.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I mean, I don't understand all this necessity of creating an "open document" standard. Especially when it comes down to politicians deciding which should be a ubiquitous document format.
To my knowledge, its never been a problem for a software company A to read and support documents from software company B, and vice versa. In fact, when it comes to word processing documents, which are largely text based (in a binary format), the problem is moot. Sure, you may not get some advanced formatting features specific to an individual package, but at least you can get the meat and potatoes of the document.
Unless you go to extraordinary lengths to encrypt a document so that only your application and read and write to it, I don't understand what all the hubbub is about.
Lets put it this way. If Microsoft comes out with an "open standard" and the OSS community comes out with an "open standard", whats the big deal? This means that Microsoft products will be able to natively support OSS document standards, and the OSS community will support Microsoft standards. Its not like either community needs to reverse-engineer the document format, both communities are making their standards open and thus, easily supported by 3rd parties.
What I find laughable is the idea that a government has to support ONE standard. I mean, does it really make a hill of beans difference for politicians? Whether your a politician that support the OSS community, or swears by retail software companies (depends where most of your campaign monies came from or didn't come from), the applications your going to use will be able to support either or standards.
Making a software product support one and only one standard is Stupid, period, with a capital S, especially when you have such disparaging differences between the OSS and retail software communities.
So, get over it. I mean, this doesn't need to have have taxpayers money wasted on such an endeavour to try and promote one person's open document standards over another. This is one of those non-news items that people seem to get all fired up over.
As long as I can go into application X, and open application's Y documents, who freakin cares what document format is being used!
If you really need a common standard, saving everything to PDF for goodness sakes!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I think he was against legislation for wind power initiatives with a "not in my backyard" mentality, but, I could be wrong on that one...heard the tail end of that one on the radio...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The process... was driven by one individual in a very powerful position (Kriss) issuing a memo to an individual in a less powerful position (Quinn).
Um, isn't that how everything gets done? A superior instructs a person lower-down on the totem pole to complete a task? In theory the person in the "very powerful position" is the person with the authority to make such decisions. So... what's the problem?
Developers: We can use your help.
Not only should we select a document format that supports speech, but that should be embedded into the file format as a wav. I think that this will make it easier for applications to play it for the user.
Also embedded in the document will be a massive bitmap containing high resolution images with enlarged fonts for our users hard of sight.
We're not sure, either, if the people will all have the same true type font so we'll go ahead and embed that in the file too. Wait, better include the codecs for the image and sound snippets. Oh, and I guess we can't be sure the viewer can read them so we'll include the viewer too.
My, oh my, this is much better than the crappy OpenDocument format I used in my prior ideology.
I just opened up MS Word and typed "Hello World!" and saved it to my desktop. 24,064 bytes. Why? What in God's name is that bloated app bloating in it's bloated files?
Arguing for MS Office is not a "valid bitch."
My work here is dung.
So because OpenDocument can't help everyone, it shouldn't help anyone? What kind of moronic politician -- sorry, I repeat myself -- thinks this is an intelligent decision?
You know, Boston's "Big Dig" doesn't do me a bit of good here in the West, so why the hell should I pay for it? Oh yeah, I forgot, government is supposed to reflect the will of the majority, not just the vocal minority. We all make sacrifices -- and in this case, a very small one -- for the good of society as a whole.
Pacheo has been on the wrong side of this for a while. I guess he figured it was time for another headline.
-- Alastair
saying the state's IT division didn't have the authority to make that decision and has disregarded the needs of disabled citizens.
How about poor citizens who can't afford the Microsoft Tax?
Marc Pacheco used to be my Senator when I lived in MA. I didn't like him. He was entirely dismissive when we disagreed with him about a proposal to allow more dirt bikes in the state forest (he was ferit, we were aginit).
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
... to figure out which politicians in Massachusetts are for sale.
Seriously though, even though we all know the "do it for the disabled" is a hoax in this case, when is the "lowest common denominator" mentality just too ridiculous? Law of diminishing returns... spend 20% of your resources to meet the needs of 80% of the people. Spend 80% of your resources to meet the needs of the remaining 20% of the people. The American's With Disabilities act must be one of the biggest scams of all time. Instead of treating people who have disabilities with respect, we've written patronizing and pity into law. Sue away...
Let him know.
Make him understand.
To say that Opensource programs don't offer benefits to handicapped people -- a group who continuously gets short shrift when it comes to state and government budgeting -- is a little ironic.
Why not transfer the cost savings of switching from MS Office to OO.org to a budget for handicapped services. I'm sure the handicapped population would be more than happy with that.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
As an employee of a state's executive branch, I can assure you that for us, cost is far and away the most important aspect in making any sort of A vs B comparison. Our entire system is driven by the lowest bidder. (And if you save $50 on something you don't care about, that means you get to spend $50 extra on something you do. Governors are very, VERY specific as to what they do and don't care about.)
And ODF = free.
In fact, I'm fairly certain that if Massachusetts wanted to hire 5-10 developers to create a program to deal with ODFs in a disability-accessible manner, it still wouldn't cost as much as using proprietary software.
Marc didn't give a crap till MS made it worth his time with a couple mil in free licenses.
"Massachusetts Senator" == (Edward "Ted" Kennedy || John Kerry)
Marc Pacheco is a "Massachusetts State Senator", i.e. one of 40 members of the upper house of the bicameral Massachusetts state legislature.
Big difference.
For the love of all that is holy, please dont ever bring up OpenDoc again.
This battle is about getting wide spread support for a open document format. Currently the best app implementing that (well, best implementation of ODF by an app) happens to be an OSS package.
But for this battle it is OK, and possibly better, if MS adopts the format. Its better, over the mid term, because it would mean that on the next upgrade cycle everyone MS users would just get ODF support, implicitly. And that would mean that future purchasing decisions wouldnt have the same high profile, and thus would be less likely to be politicalicized. And that would mean that in 2012, OpenOffice 3.5 and MS Office 2015 would compete on technical and price considerations alone.
This guy got contributions from Microsoft. Now, it was only $600 over 3 years, so not sure if it's even worth repeating, but there it is. http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource.html? action=print
Saving the World: One Drink at a Time
and we let people this ignorant about technology regulate it.
Attention Senator Pacheco. Your check from Microsoft is waiting. Please pick it up in the parking lot from the man in the low hat, dark trenchcoat, and sunglasses.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Greetings,
There are quite a few mis-understandings in your comment, which I would guess, are the same mis-understandings held by the bozo from Mass.
1. Microsoft has proven over and over again, that they do not adhere to their own document standards. Because of this a document that you create today in M$ office, may be readable next year in M$ Office 2007, but what about in 2015? 2030? Additionally, due to the way M$ works, you cannot implement a version of their "standard" in your own software without paying a fee, and as they have demostrated, you pay the fee, they change the format, you have to pay again.
2. Microsoft created an "Open Standard" document format which they submitted for evaluation, however, there were 3 keys that failed to meet the minimum criteria, A) Would not be available until the next version of M$ Office. B) Required a license from M$ to use. C) Was not compatible with any existing "Open" license or agreement, as such it could not be used in StarOffice, OpenOffice, kOffice, Gnumeric, etc, and even then, if M$ changed their license, it could not be implemented until M$ finalized the standard. ODF is already supported in at least 3 office suites, and two of those support it natively as well as their own standard.
3. No office package out there supports only a single document format, however, none of them support their competitor's formats at anything more than basic level. Because of this, though you could read a WordPerfect document in Word, you may not be able to properly edit it while retaining all of it's embedded information. Same thing going the other way. Now, to make matters even worse, no single document format out there, save ODF, supports all office functions in a single format. In M$ Office, you have a Doc fomat, an Excel format, a PPT format, etc. ODF is a single format specification that can be used by all of them.
4. The reason a standard is needed, is quite simply to save our documentation for the future. We cannot be sure that M$ will still be around in 40 years, 50 years, 100 years, so relying on their "Open Standard", which as stated previously requires a license from M$ to use, may not be legally usable in the future. With ODF, since it is a true Open Standard, as in the public domain now, means that it can be used legally at any time and for any reason.
Now, on a different tack, This is simply a document format / storage standard. This is not an application standard, which the bozo from Mass is implying. By saying that all documents must be stored in ODF, does not mean that you have to use any one application to do it, simply that the application you use, must store the document in the ODF format.
"Individuals are smart, people are stupid" -- Tommy Lee Jones as "K" from Men In Black
Seems to me that Senator Pacheco wanted to make the decision himself -- just in the opposite direction!
And this whole more powerful/less powerful discussion sounds like an overdose of Politically Correct thinking, which makes him a danger as anybody's senator.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Besides this guy's confusion of data format versus application as others have mentioned, why does he think that all disabled people (and abled people for that matter) have $399USD kicking around for a copy of Microsoft Office? Bizarre.
You're confusing the document format with one of the many applications that can read/write that format. The state mandate was for Open Document. You're complaining that Open Office - one of 15 applications that can read/write Open Document - is inferior to Microsoft Office.
Microsoft could quite easily write a plugin to read/write Open Document. Microsoft Office already support dozens of other formats of dubious quality and relevance. Open Document is clearly relevant and IMO of very high quality. Why is Open Document such a problem for Microsoft? I think I know why. Do you?
Thats some bad moderation going on there. It was midly funny, but what insight does it bring? If anything, as all posters that have replied to the post indicate, he completely misunderstood the GP post. I don't have mod points otherwise I'd mod it down myself.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
You're right - that would be ridiculous. Since the OpenDocument Foundation released an OpenDocument plugin for Word, at least Massachusetts won't have to deal with any bizarre scenarios like that with their word processing.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Since when did Belgium lose it's status as a sovereign state?
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
... and although my own disability doesn't restrict my computer use in any way, I still find this kind of ideological abuse totally disgusting. Open standards are, in the end, beneficial for access by everybody using any chosen access means. This includes not only the disabled, but everyone else as well. It is immaterial that things like screen readers may not exist yet.. they can be produced, and will be, if the specs are available. Anybody with even slight programming experience will know that in this case existing software is probably easy to modify to just read the new format into the program's internal representation. Contrast this with whatever limited access proprietary formats' owners choose to grant -- and to whom -- in order to look good.
Not to mention these same guys at this end of the political spectrum in general typically won't give a shit about disabled people's rights in anything, as mostly, we're just "bad for the economy". Apparently we can still be "useful" in some situations.
They should just speak for themselves and not get all caring and compassionate all of a sudden when it serves their own interest.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
am glad he worries about disabled ppl but what about people who cant afford Microsoft products or the PCs to run more than windows 98? I live in South-Africa and once a month someone brings a windows 98 PC in for repairs. Linux runs much faster on old hardware and the sooner ppl can start using open office ect instead of being forced into a Microsoft universe the better. how many disabled people actually read government documents anyway? I'm not disabled but I never ever before read an offical document from the government.
This is my sig.
Probably a troll but...
1) there are multiple apps that do read thiis format.
2) it isn't hard for MS to create a converter for this. When they wanted to convert WordPerfect users to Word, they not only created a plug in for multiple WP formats, but had a WP mode within Word.
3) it's not some guy in his basement wrote this. It's an ECMA standard.
MS has long known the power of network effects. In the beginning it would do anything to give away software, just so they'd try it, and establish network effects. In some ways it was like shareware... they'd hope you pay for it (and most did) but the few that didn't they didn't mind much.
Now that they are market dominance, they already have the "network", the hundreds of thousands users that interact though Word. It's very hard for people to break the "network" of Word, and MS relies on that. the only real way is to chip at the edges (very slowly) or have a large agency mandate it. Mass. and Belgium doing this can cause real damage in the long term as a new non-MS network emerges.
A smart company gives money to both sides so they can own both of them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Without a doubt Microsoft is a for-profit company, good or evil being the decision of the individual consumer.
Is Microsoft Office (to include its file formats) an open standard. No, however they are a 'de facto standard'.
ODF while an open standard, true will gain more users overtime, but to simply dismiss proprietory software companies
simply because they won't 'open' their standards is foolish. The question of how Microsoft gained their 'de facto' standard,
I'll leave to others, I simply look at it like this, their software works, I've never had a problem getting other document formats
to work in Word or any other MS application, (or for that matter any of their applications / operating systems). Some people do have
issues with them, true, I've fixed / patched enough computers with their software to know that. I'll even be so bold to say a lot of the
problems, are user generated, though some have been squarely on Microsoft's shoulders. Be that as it may, considering the investment (or
loss of investment) a lot of the Anything But Microsoft crowd is advocating is highly significant. Accepting open standards, just because
they are open, sometimes is not the best way to proceed (think of the too many chefs in the kitchen theory).
Not saying I'm right, but I am saying dismissing a Microsoft solution, just because its Microsoft sometimes is kinda stupid I think.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Good Guy!)
Regards,
MBC1977,
http://www.mass.gov/legis/member/mrp0.htm
his e-mail address is:
Marc.Pacheco@state.ma.us
let this corrupt little vermin know what you think of him.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
So because OpenDocument can't help everyone, it shouldn't help anyone? What kind of moronic politician -- sorry, I repeat myself -- thinks this is an intelligent decision?
True story... I worked a poll during a recent election in California. One of the many interesting bureaucratic foibles that caught my attention was the fact that all polls must post signs stating that there are no public restrooms... Even if there are in fact public restrooms on the premises. The reasoning was that they couldn't afford to ensure that all restrooms were handicapped accessible - So there simply weren't restrooms for anyone.
Better yet, I was working a location that was publically owned (a learning annex type place), which included handicapped accessible restrooms. Still "No Public Restrooms."
There's something magical about the way government works.
You can't win, Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
* zoom for readability
Open Office can zoom. Interface or file under view independly. With a macro this can be assigned to keys. Has been since 1.0.x.
* reading layout view
No TTS reason for that is not there.
* keyboard shortcuts
All that is there just a changable and MS office.
* and don't forget scroll with your mouse
Scroll with mouse is there Zoom with mouse was not the last time I checked. This could have changed.
Some one hire a person for a few months to enbed festival into OpenOffice and add the Zoom with mouse features and MS Office will have not advanage in this field at all. The savings of switching could pay for the programmer to do this.
Openoffice works ok with external Text readers. Yes it would be better if they were internal.
Just setting it up is the problem. The features are just not pefectly default.
"The process, quite frankly, was driven by one individual in a very powerful position"
This is eseentially the problem with the majority of politically driven initatives.
Pull your head out of your ass Senator, this happens far too many times, with far greater consequences than a mere document format.
I'm talking about the stuff "that really matters" - health, economics, welfare, jobs, civil rights etc.
Sick of death of how govenments operate.
You are arguing the politically-trendy fallacy that more choice implies better results. This holds only if the optimal result is one of the available choices, which isn't automatically the case. Indeed, it may be that the resources necessary to provide multiple choices could better be invested in a single approach that will be better than all of the multiple choices as a result.
In this case, the anti-MS argument is flawed because no tool currently available that uses ODF is even close to beating MS Office in several important areas, which apparently include support for people with various disabilities. Mandating the use of ODF would thus not be in the immediate interests of those who use office applications in MA and use those areas of the product.
Now, whether mandating open specifications for public documents is in the long-term interests of the people of MA is a different question. You could certainly make a case that it is, if you believe the move to standardise on ODF would probably result in MS Office supporting the format at least as well as it supports the proprietary formats used at present, or that other, better choices will become available. But for this argument to have any merit, it needs to show why the long-term benefits outweigh any short-term disadvantages, and that the short-term disadvantages aren't show-stoppers. This appears to be where the senator sees a problem (or has had one shown to him by Microsoft; it doesn't really matter).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
How the fuck is this a problem? And how the fuck is a non-technical asshat like this senator having any input into what is, essentially, a document control/IT problem?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You are arguing from a purely theoretical point of view. In practical situations, Nature abhors a vacuum. In a truly free market when a solution is needed someone will provide it.
Indeed, it may be that the resources necessary to provide multiple choices could better be invested in a single approach that will be better than all of the multiple choices as a result.
Surely, if you enumerate all the possibilities, then this may be one of the resulting scenarios. But there are other possible situations. It may also be that the resources necessary to provide the one choice that the monopolistic overlord provides could better be invested in one or more alternative approaches.
In this case, the anti-MS argument is flawed because no tool currently available that uses ODF is even close to beating MS Office in several important areas, which apparently include support for people with various disabilities.
Since means for using ODF in MS-Office have already been developed, the argument for ODF stands on a very solid basis. People with disabilities can continue to use MS-Office, if they want or need to.
for this argument to have any merit, it needs to show why the long-term benefits outweigh any short-term disadvantages, and that the short-term disadvantages aren't show-stoppers.
This has been amply demonstrated, case closed, bring in the ODF.
Children or a minority is mentioned.
the version of xml being called odf is only a means of saving a document, presumably the original. how many times has microsoft made changes to word that made documents generated by older versions unreadable? so the solution is fairly obvious; save the doc in odf, and when a copy with more features is needed/wanted, simply use the office suite to add them. access for the blind/handicapped exists for even plain text, so that's a bullshit argument.
anyway, microsoft can add that format option easily from the published specs, they are only dragging their feet because they want to get paid for holding information hostage.
anti-odf people are not helping anyone, not even themselves.
Aren't the marines professional killers? Given US history on foreign policy, I think we can all agree that the marines are not always the good guys. So I think you put the inverting exclamation in the wrong place in the pecular pseudo code above, it should be:
Naturally it depends both on how "Good Guy" is defined and the evaluation rules of this language, however IMHO it's not advisable to use doublespeak in variable names.
This is the thing. It's far easier to reverse engineer simple pseudocode than undocumented proprietry file formats and MSFT don't produce an open-source reader for linux, it has taken years for the community to reverse engineer the .doc format. If your position is that a single corporation that has been found guilty of breaching anti-trust violations on 3 continents should be permitted to control and limit public access to public information, you should explain the benefits.
PS: I recognise the need for a military and I'm sure you are a good guy, I just can't help myself.
Like any group of people small enough not to make a difference in our elections. Any system that ultimately comes down to one candidate/party getting the most votes will always be vulnerable to electoral mathematics, where resources are concentrated on enough groups of sufficient size to secure those votes, to the exclusion of all others.
It's far from ideal, and I'm sure it does disadvantage many groups. I don't think it's a very good system. But as long as it's what we've got, my previous statement will hold, even if that means screwing blind people, black people, women, the unemployed, or for that matter, white, middle-class males. They're not being screwed because of those properties, they're being screwed on the basis of whether their group has enough votes to make a significant difference at election time.
To beat this, you'd need a reform of the electoral voting method.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
This is yet another example (and a fine one, at that) of the idea that our elected representatives utterly lack any comprehension of how current tech actually works and affects our lives.
This lack of knowledge leads to issues like TFA, as well as the **AA's raping of our copyright laws, and the rampant policy wrangling of the Telco's.
Screw this, I'm moving to the moon.
"Microsoft Office has built-in help for people with disabilities ..
.. OpenDocument-based products do not yet" - John Winske
Why a document standard would affect a screen reader defies logic. Could you list any functionality that Microsoft Office provides the disabled that you believe does not exist in Open Source. May I remind you that the American Foundation of the Blind (AFB) awarded Gnome and Sun the Helen Keller Achievement Award in 2002. Sun being one of the originators of Open Office.
In this document we have Adobe answering some of the points raised in the "Joint Statement on Open Source & Open Documents in Massachusetts" released by your Disability Policy Consortium and the Bay State Council of the Blind.
davecb5620@gmail.com
OpenDoc and OpenDocument are two different things:
A small number of OpenDoc references are honest mistakes, like the previous post, but by and large many are done repeatedly and on purporse by various MS' shills and sock-puppets to further confuse the issue: "Saturate, Diffuse and Confuse"
The key modifier there is currently. If you read up on the topic you'll notice that accessibility support currently in MS Office is all from third parties and possible in spite of MS. Looking even a few quarters ahead, these third party vendors would have a much easier time dealing with the well-documented, relatively stable APIs provided by applications currently supporting the OpenDocument format, rather than dealing with undocumented, and often hidden APIs that change with each new version. In other words, the makers of accessibility software would have an easer time (read: more money) if they could get people enough people away from MS Office.
Another key point is that Massachusetts is talking about a phased roll out, not a Ballmeresque "rip and replace". There will be a place in the system for a few years where legacy apps can be used by those that have to.
However, MS could always choose to support OpenDocument and render the whole debate about applications moot. MS has been encouraged and invited to participate in OpenDocument's development since very early on. And wasn't MS talking a lot of crap recently about how MS Office could support arbitrary XML schemas? If that's the case, then it should be able to handle OpenDocument just fine. However, I'd bet about 99% of your typical non-visually impaired government office workers probably can't tell which office suite they're using anyway. WordPerfect, AppleWorks, KOffice, OpenOffice.org, etc. - to them they're all just MS Word, no joke. "Word ®" seems to have become generic for "Word Processing".
The debate there in Massachusetts was about formats anyway and not applications. Besides it's over, and OpenDocument will be rolled out as departments can begin supporting it. There are a lot of vendors that would like a piece of that action.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I actually feel vaguely qualified to comment on this, as someone who is learning disabled and worked extensively with the Office for Disability Services at my university (think really big and in ohio). I freely admit I'm a technical and open source moron, but I do know that when we worked with the adaptive software vendors they told us the programs we purchased were designed to work with pretty much any format of document and almost any program. Most of the reps really took pains to make sure that their software was compatible with the widest possible array of formats and programs, cause a lot of the standard office programs have to be dumped in favor of other solutions that are more friendly to the physically impaired students. I'm having an rather enormous amount of trouble seeing how and open source standard is going to hurt access for the disabled.