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Texas Legislature Considers Open Document Formats
An anonymous reader notes that a legislator in Texas has introduced a bill to require open document formats in all state government business. The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as "open." The story is covered by the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which is careful to be even-handed, giving Microsoft's spokesman equal time. A ZDNet blogger notes that the bill, introduced by a Democrat in a state whose politics is dominated by Republicans, faces chances that "...fall somewhere east of slim and west of none."
The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as "open."
That's favoring one vendor over another.
I totally agree with you there, and that is what I came here to say.
Microsoft Office, ODF, PDF and XHTML would be much better,
By suggesting MS Office, you miss the point of open formats. Suppose the government saves something, and doesn't open it again for 30 years. This happens a lot for archives. It will be tough to impossible to track down the specific version of MS Office so they can open it. They likely won't even know which version to track down. PDF or XHTML, on the other hand, are open formats, and are unlikely to die soon. XHTML has the additional advantage that it is text, and even if 50 years from now, nobody remembers how to render XHTML, they can get the content by reading the file in a text editor.
And vice versa.