Posted on 09/29/2005 8:52:01 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
The broader media usually take little interest in public policy debates about technology, but they’re missing a big story in Massachusetts.
The technology trades, blogs and industry are buzzing about a monumental policy shift in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Officials in the state have proposed a new policy that mandates that every state technology system use only applications designed around OpenDocument file formats.
Such a policy might seem like something that should concern only a small group of technology professionals, but in fact the implications are staggering and far-reaching. The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations.
Worse, the policy represents an attack on market-based competition, which in turn will hurt innovation. The state has a disaster in the making.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
B2K is a microsoft partisan, but he at least seems to have other interests here on FR. For a while, I thought they were more or less the same, but the Buzzard has trancended reality to a class all by himself in his shilldom. In general, I cut B2k slack because I think I could actually have a face to face rational discussion with him about the issues. With the Brass Buzzard, you get the impression that Linus raped and murdered his sister or something, which precludes rational thought.
If Microsoft gives in and supports this format then other states can force Microsoft to do what they want.
If Microsoft does NOT support it then MA will have thousands of state workers annoyed when they can no longer use Microsoft Word.
This arbitrary decision to support a not widely used new format is stupidity on the part of MA and reminds me of the many 'open source' zealots who insist on that for the 'good of mankind' (like socialists and liberals)
How many companies or people need 'open source' ("Here Grammaw - you can program your own operating systems functions")
I don't see why you modified the word 'forum' above with the word 'conservative'. He has shown no interest whatsoever in anything conservative (or even libertarian) on this board in the years he has been posting. The political POV of the site he is posting on seems to be irrelevant. Me, I have opinions about everything, and am not afraid to share.
Think of all the political issues that have arisen since April 1999 (GE's join date), then consider the fact that you can look through literally thousands of consecutive posts by him and find maybe one or two instances where he posts on a topic other than his anti-open source diatribes. Even those few cases do not, to my memory actually involve an issue of any actual controversy. (i.e., I think I've seen a post or two concerning a sports team IIRC).
Do you think any normal person could have that kind of posting history here at Free Republic?
(The above was directed more to 'all' than yourself, but you had a good hook to hang it on.)
I think I've figured out why microsoft is screaming so loudly about this! Past experience has shown us all that Microsoft is incapable of coding an application to conform to a design document. See IE's horrible implementation of W3C standards. They apparently can't even conform to their own standards. Ever tried opening up a moderately complex MS-Word 2.x file in Office XP?
That must be it!
Link? Everything I have seen says they are not planning on implementing ODF. Any old XINO format does not an ODF make.. But pending your link: Good for them, if MS meets the tech spec MA demands then I guess it should just come down to a straight TCO decision..
I've got 1.1.3 and it's there. You might want to hold off though as the 2.0 version is almost ready for prime time.
Yes I am furious that the elected government of MA which is beholden to the people would decide to store all of its information in a format not owned by a single company in WA. Are you seriously saying its a bad thing when a Democratically elected government makes data format ownership public?
How many companies or people need 'open source'
This is not about open source! Star Office is not GPL opensource and it supports ODL, Corel will have it out by the end of the year. Hell, Even MS may someday support it. ODL is an open standard not open source. But hey, if it gives you something to complain about, no matter how little you actually understand it, have fun..
If there is any way to get Ted Kennedy and Bill Gates in a caged 'rasslin' match, i'm all for it. ;o)
Yeah...and I'm sure in your world that VHS is superior to Beta.
And just what did you "fix", Brainiac? Are you implying I'm un-American simply because I distrust Gates and crew?
Ya know, all you "either use Big Brother Microsoft or you're a pinko" bedwetters need to fix yourselves first. Might I suggest you begin with hormone replacement therapy?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1489552/posts?page=59#59
Funny you mention that, since I've felt sort of the same. But don't tell him that. ;)
OMG!!! You're going back to Beta vs. VHS? This is soooo funny. I guess you wasted a lot of money on Beta. Personally nearly all formats backed by Sony tend to flop (or receive very limited support).
But to answer your question, VHS wasn't bad for the economy, country, or state govt's. But since you brought it up, how is Beta better for state govt's?
There you go again...resorting to name calling when you can't make a point.
/sigh
typical.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/developers/filefaq.mspx
Open and Royalty-free Specification
Office XML Formats are based on industry standard XML and ZIP technologies, support full integration by any technology provider, and are available via a royalty-free license. Format specifications will be published and made available under the same royalty-free license that exists for the Microsoft Office 2003 Reference Schemas—openly offered and available for broad industry use.
Before you blast that as not the ODF that Taxachusettes is backing...I'll give you my follow up point which proves taxachusettes is just trying to put out a standard that makes it anything but microsoft.
PDF is NOT an ODF. Do you agree or disagree? I'm going to assume you agree, otherwise, it will be like you telling me the sky is green.
Why did Taxachusettes make an exception for PDF? Possible argument is that they opened the standard up for other's to use (as posted above). So with MS allowing others to use their standard royalty free via open standards (XML)...Taxachussettes should also make specify Office 12 standard as acceptable, right?
In addition to that, they can always create a plug-in for Office to save in their limited ODF format. So if they do that will that make office acceptable?
The MS license only licenses the current version of *their* specification and not any improvements they might make down the line. This means that when office 13 comes out MS could very well say well we have new technology rolled into this and we are not going to provide the new specs.
ODF is a specific format, not a general concept that MS can use to push their XINO format as 'open'.
"The OpenDocument format (ODF), short for the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is an open document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents such as text documents (including memos, reports, and books), spreadsheets, charts, and presentations. This standard was developed by the OASIS industry consortium, based upon the XML-based file format originally created by OpenOffice.org."
The main reason is that here is no ODF equivalent to PDF, I cant think on any equivalent format to pdf, open or closed.
So with MS allowing others to use their standard royalty free via open standards (XML)...Taxachussettes should also make specify Office 12 standard as acceptable, right?
Honestly IANAL, but those I have talked to on the issue says the license MS is using has many clauses they would be uncomfortable with. *IF* the license is just as open as ODF's I would have no problem with it being used.
In addition to that, they can always create a plug-in for Office to save in their limited ODF format. So if they do that will that make office acceptable?
Oh for sure, if MS supported the ODF format i think that the only other factor MA should look at is TCO and if its lower for office than they should go with that.
I personally have written code to generate PDF files byte by byte and have given presentations at technical conferences on the very same thing. It's an open standard, the only thing limiting implementation is getting up the gumption to do it.
You may want to brush up on what an OPEN STANDARD is. The fact that Adobe owns pdf means it's not an open standard. Just like Java isn't an open standard--sun owns it.
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