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Open Standards Initiative Fails in Massachusetts

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the after-much-ado dept.

walterbyrd writes "Massachusetts has decided to use Microsoft's Open-XML standard. This decison: 'stands in sharp contrast to the positions taken by predecessor CIOs Peter Quinn and Louis Gutierrez, backed by then governor (and now-presidential hopeful) Mitt Romney. Both Quinn and Gutierrez insisted on including only "open standards" in the ETRM, and withstood significant pressure from Microsoft to give ground and accept OOXML...'"

7 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Just goes to show... by StringBlade · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...that undoubtedly business and politics are tangled together in a bed of money.

    Does this really come as a surprise that a change in regime would change the direction of a major initiative? I think we've seen this many times before, not the least of which being the Microsoft antitrust trial. When the old boss moves out, the new boss moves in, waves his hands, and changes the playing field yet again.

    *sigh*

    --
    ...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
    1. Re:Just goes to show... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ya gotta love government corruption! The bottom line here, folks, is that we're getting a view of exactly how ugly politics and business are here in the United States. Because the tech journals have been covering this topic under a microscope, we see what the true stripes of government look like, from our own geek perspectives.

      If you think it's just Microsoft, you're sadly mistaken. Most big corporations participate in this sort of shenanigans, and it plays into every law that gets passed and every candidate that gets elected.

      Not to worry too much, though. The revolution will come soon enough. (No, it won't be me starting it, nor do I know who it will be, so back off Carnivore/Echelon/whatever)

      --
      My blog
  2. Actually... by bomanbot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if you read TFA it says that they are including both ODF and Open XML as acceptable document formats.

    So while the original intention to only include really open formats is regrettably given up (curiously by an interim CIO, why does he decide that if he is only a temporary hire?), it is not like ODF got dumped for the Microsoft format.

    1. Re:Actually... by visualight · · Score: 5, Insightful

      what?

      By including a non-open format they are locked in to MS products. Not being locked in was the point of the entire endeavor.

      --
      Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
    2. Re:Actually... by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I thought the point was to guarantee access to documents without them being held for ransom by the company that owns the format...

      Yeah, Microsoft has a free reader, but they don't give away the platform you need to run it... Plus you can save documents in a way that is OOXML compliant, but can't be rendered using the information from the spec alone. That means, neither of the reasons that either of us gave are filled by Microsoft's format.

  3. Re:Well, it took time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All I can hope for is that in {enter date of choice here} years time that all the docs in MA that were arcdhived in OOXML format become unreadable and totally useless as OOXML V25 (or whatver) drops support for V1.
    Meanwhile those that were archived with other open (as well as properly documented) formats are still available to the masses.

    Any organisation going for OOXML are just asking to get stuffed in the future. Microsoft could enforce DRM and other nasties on the users and then start charging for every access to the document even though the content might be your copyright, they hold the strings over the format.
    Just like the Monks in the Middle Ages did paper books. Knowelege is POWER. Control of the access to the Knowelege is ABSOLUTE POWER

    Just my warped $0.02 worth on this dark day.

  4. Re:Well, it took time... by dup_account · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ummmm, you obviously are over simplifying the issue. Mass needs to make these documents available to more than one person, potentially sending them out to outside people and organizations. Does this mean that M$ will be giving them open licenses so they can send the appropriate version of Office out along with the documents?

    The point of using standards is so that whatever software is being used in 10-20 years should still be able to read the documents from today. Yes standards will evolve, but the really good ones still find (and were designed originally) a way to maintain compatibility.

    It is kind of pathetic that you feel its acceptable to keep old copies of all that software? Please tell me you are also keeping machines/windows versions around that will still run the software. I would chuckle when you found out that Vista no longer runs Office 3.0 that you have so carefully kept (but not windows 95).