Bill Introduced in Minnesota to Require Use of "Open Data Formats"

Consortium Standards Bulletin ^ | 4/5/06

[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....

[N3WBI3]

The licensing terms on the new XML format say that if youre using it you cant sue microsoft or their affialiates if they violote your IP as it realtes to opening files in that product..

[softwarecreator]

Yeah, but what does that have to do with opening a ".doc", ".ppt", ".mdb" or ".xls" file in Office?

This isn't going to change and hasn't since the creation of Office.

[softwarecreator]

Just because you 10 percenters want us to switch doesn't mean us 90 percenters should have to.

Exactly.  And that's what everyone seems to be dismissing here.  The few who want ODF do not represent the great majority.  Very few will want to switch and even fewer will switch.  This just seems to me like the tiny minority pushing it's agenda on the vast majority.

[N3WBI3]

But going forward it *will* when office twelve starts using ms's xml as a default..

[Petronski]

The funny thing about the future, I can't be specific. It hasn't happened yet.

[softwarecreator]

Okay, I'll go along with you on this.  I will have to wait until 12 comes out and see if this affects anything in the way you say it will.

[softwarecreator]

Exactly.  Until then this is all just speculation.  But see how everyone automatically assumes the worst.

[Petronski]

But see how everyone automatically assumes the worst.

The idea of going to ODF is--knowing Microsoft's track record--to preempt the worst.

[SauronOfMordor]

This discussion has been going back and forth about Microsoft Word and passing documents around.

I've taken a look at the legislation at the link. There's nothing in the legislation that talks about "documents". The legislation talks about "information". Specifically, it talks about

"Information and telecommunications technology systems and services" means 
1.11    all computing and telecommunications hardware and software, the activities undertaken 
1.12    to secure that hardware and software, and the activities undertaken to acquire, transport, 
1.13    process, analyze, store, and disseminate information electronically. "Information and 
1.14    telecommunications technology systems and services" includes all proposed expenditures 
1.15    for computing and telecommunications hardware and software, security for that hardware 
1.16    and software, and related consulting or other professional services.

They are not just talking about emailing Word docs.

What this means, in the wider sense, is the encouragement of the use of HTML to present documents for humans, and XML to organize and transfer information between systems and agencies

It means not being hosed if a court demands that you cough up information that is buried in an archive tape or CD, in a format that can only be read by proprietary software of a company which went bust years ago, and which does not run on any current machine

It also precludes allowing the state from being held hostage by a software company if important data is in a proprietary format, readable by software which is licensed (but NOT owned) and the software owner wants to get cute about renewing license terms

[softwarecreator]

The idea of going to ODF is--knowing Microsoft's track record--to preempt the worst

Oh yeah, the evil Microsoft, I forgot {{rolls eyes}}

[Petronski]

Oh yeah, the evil Microsoft, I forgot {{rolls eyes}}

I didn't say they were evil. I said they have a track record.

[softwarecreator]

I said they have a track record

Every company has a track record.

[Petronski]

Every company has a track record.

[DemosCrash]

You do realize that MS provides free readers for all of its document formats, right?

[Petronski]

How does a free reader help someone who wants to create a document?

[DemosCrash]

And you can take that to the bank.

Yeah, but at least doing nothing practical at all will make the zealots feeeeeeeeeeeeel good... LMFAO! Thanks for the post!

[Calpernia]

ping

[DemosCrash]

How does a free reader help someone who wants to create a document?

Who ever said anything about "creating" a document? You wanted access to document formats. You've got it. Now, you're whining about not being able to "create" them? WTF?

[Petronski]

I'm not whining.

[DemosCrash]

You're being incoherent. The reason that people are complaining is that they claim to not have access to information contained in proprietary vendor formats. But clearly, when there are readers for said proprietary vendor formats, the claim to the contrary just doesn't hold up. So track record actually backs M$; if anything, M$ has released readers for all of its old formats, so the information is readily available.