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Posted on 04/05/2006 4:58:29 PM PDT by steve-b
I received an email yesterday pointing me to a bill, introduced on March 27, that would require all Executive branch agencies in the state of Minnesota to "use open standards in situations where the other requirements of a project do not make it technically impossible to do this." The text of the bill is focused specifically on "open data formats," and would amend the existing statute that establishes the authority of the Office of Enterprise Technology (OET), and the duties of the states Chief Information Officer. While the amendment does not refer to open source software, the definition of "open standards" that it contains would be conducive to open source implementations of open standards. The text of the affected sections of Minnesota Statutes Chapter 16E, showing the amendments proposed, can be found here.
The fact that such a bill has been introduced is significant in a number of respects. First, the debate over open formats will now be ongoing in two U.S. states rather than one. Second, if the bill is successful, the Minnesota CIO will be required to enforce a law requiring the use of open formats, rather than be forced to justify his or her authority to do so. Third, the size of the market share that can be won (or lost) depending upon a vendor's compliance with open standards will increase. And finally, if two states successfully adopt and implement open data format policies, other states will be more inclined to follow....
(Excerpt) Read more at consortiuminfo.org ...
Governments are in BUSINESS to fleece taxpayers.
Which alternative universe are you from?
Governments don't want some monopoly vendor to fleece the taxpayers. They hate competition.
LOL! I'll buy that.
I'm strongly in favor of open document formats for public documents. Use of public documents shouldn't require one to do business with any particular company.
It'll be interesting to see what the legal definition of an 'open document' is though. I find it hard to believe that any governmental body could do that with any degree of precision.
I've taken a close look at the open document format as implemented by OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, and koffice. I like it a lot because it is very easy to understand and manupulate. One thing I'm kind of disappointed in though is that there doesn't appear to be any built-in method for implementing pgp/gpg digital signatures in documents. Given the way the data is formatted in an ODF document, it would have been incredibly easy to have implemented detached signatures of the data and formatting information.
I actually implemented a variation of this with an ODF document via of a script that could open and validate the integrity of the file data on the fly. Pretty cool, and really simple too.
IBTGE ping.
I'm not surprised that Minnesota politicians can't even spell "XML". ;)
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I can imagine the outrage on this forum if the law was changed forcing them to use only Microsoft.
I've argued for years that requiring commercial products to view public documents is a violation of the freedom of information act.
Micro$oft is a member of the w3c, and has been giving lip service to the concept for a while. Now that it's here, watch them tap dance.
It is about choice: the ability of the public to view documents that the public owns without having to choose ONE commercial product to do so.
And whether Microsoft will choose to support an open format or walk away from this market based on the fact that doing so would jeopardize their monopoly.
That's not the same at all. Microsoft can add ODF to its software if it chooses...it's an Open Format.
But guessing the workings of the .DOC or .XLS formats is a haphazard affair, even for Microsoft itself.
SWC,
They are forcing a standard *not* a software package. If MS supported ODF as Start Office does, and I believe Corel is releasing MS would be just fine..
Really witty. Thanks for giving me a laugh with the java (the liquid kind) this a.m.
The simplest open source format would be for them to use a pencil and piece of paper. Or how about a typewriter and a piece of paper.
Then you could hear if these folks are working or surfing.
Personally, I think it should be open to the department to choose what to use.
That makes perfect sense... if you assume that the government is the boss.
If you assume that they work for us, then, no, they don't get to restrict our choices by using proprietary formats (unless it legitimately can't be helped).
This sounds like some lawmaker got their nose out of joint about Microsoft. They probably demanded some kickback from Microsoft and MS told them no. And the lawmaker says, I show you.
This is about internal administrative standards not consumer choices. Why would an agency not want to takes steps to avoid becoming dependent on a single vendor?
Er... who do you think foots the bill when those "internal administrative standards" generate extra costs (e.g. when a locked-in monopoly vendor starts squeezing)?
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