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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.
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.
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-- http://www.cio.com/archive/040106/opensource.html
Sure, $600 is only a token, but its the thought that counts.
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.
you gotta be kidding, there's all kinds of problems reading across word processors, at my company we get plenty of unreadable documents from our government clients using Wordperfect and other non-MS stuff. We've had to install old versions of other software just to cut and paste. For legal documents, this is not acceptable, an open document specification is long overdue.
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?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
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.
"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.
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?
From what I recall, it saves a memory dump to a file. That would include app state, undo, and other information that didn't need to survive, and it shoves it into semi-permanent storage. This explains a bunch of retarded, mind-boggling things we've all heard (and disbelieved) about Word, such as:
1) There are old, deleted, removed items still lingering in the saved data. (Proven, and has bitten people in the ass. I'm guessing it's Undo steps saved as part of the dump.)
2) Your example - "Hello, World!" takes 24k. (How much working memory does a fresh instance of Word use in the amount of time it takes to open a new document from the Normal template, type something, and save it? I'd guess about 24k.)
3) Every Word release comes with a new format, while Excel and other Office apps don't always have a new format. (The app footprint changes with every release, of course, so the memory dump does too.)
4) Word can usually open its own format very quickly, while other apps take FOREVER to import it. (It just loads working memory with whatever's in the file, while other apps don't use the same info and have to figure out what everything means.)
5) Word sometimes can't even open its own format. (Whoops, something got out of place before this file was dumped, now Word can't reconstruct its memory map! CRASH!)
Absolutely retarded. And Microsoft has the nerve to ask why anyone would want to use other software. I dare them to ask why anyone would want to use THEIR insecure, buggy, incompatible, locked-in, proprietary, asstastic formats and the apps that produce them. Microsoft should've stuck to what it did best: make Excel better.
So pragmatism only works if it occurs along the lines of your personal ideology? It makes perfect sense for Massechusetts to move in the direction of using odf. However, discontinuing the use of Office before application support for odf is equal to that of Office makes no sense at all.
I don't even need to make some crazy argument about including a dictionary of definitions of words used(recursive even) in the document.
As far as what is in the bloated file, who cares? If you want a text file, use a text file, Word is a word processing/document layout monstrosity.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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?
"You can argue until you're blue in the face that document format and application features are two separate things, but this fact remains: if you dictate a format, then people have to use an application that supports the format!"
An application that supports the format? You mean, like, Microsoft Office?
I think you're the one missing the point here. Anyone who argues apps agains formats is liable to fall into the same logical hole: Just because an app - or an app-maker, for that matter - doesn't support a format today, doesn't mean that they can't or won't. The mere fact that it is standard and required will almost inevitably be enough to ensure that someone steps up and supports the format.
Ultimately, the whole point of open formats is the exact opposite of telling someone which application they can or cannot use. The truth of it is that open formats allow the customer to decide what's best for him, without fear of finding himself at the mercy of a single, predatory vendor.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.