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."

Comments

Some in disability community see value to ODF

[peterkorn]

As I note in my blog (shameless plug) http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/korn/20060629 increasingly folks in the disability community in Massachusetts see real accessibility benefits to this move to ODF; something that hasn't been picked up yet by mainstream media. See the recent Carroll Center blog: http://blog.carrolltech.org/archives/54 and the earlier Carroll Center blog when folks were first becoming aware of ODF accessibility issues in Massachusetts http://blog.carrolltech.org/archives/51. Also the Oakdale Christian Fellowship in Charlotte NC makes similar points to the recent Carroll Center blog (see my writeup at: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/korn/20051116).

As others have noted in this thread, the mainstream media continues to repeat the falsehood that Microsoft is responsible for the accessibility of MS-Office (which is to say, the extent to which Windows assistive technology vendors have special-cased and reverse-engineering MS-Office). David Berlind's interview with Curtis Chong of the National Federation of the Blind make this very clear (see his blog at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2163

Re:Apples & Oranges

[Atmchicago]

You are absolutely correct that the Senator is talking about a red herring.

You can also argue with him, claiming that those who cannot afford the money to purchase either OSX or Windows and a copy of MS Office are effectively 'disabled' and incapable of composing compatible documents.