weird.... Mass. has the largest concentration of Brazilians in the
US. and Brazil went big into open source last year.... could there be
a link?
----
http://news.com.com/Massachusetts+moves+ahead+sans+Microsoft/
2100-1012_3-5878869.html
Massachusetts moves ahead sans Microsoft
By Martin LaMonica
http://news.com.com/Massachusetts+moves+ahead+sans+Microsoft/
2100-1012_3-5878869.html
Story last modified Fri Sep 23 11:45:00 PDT 2005
The commonwealth of Massachusetts has finalized its decision to
standardize desktop applications on OpenDocument, a format not
supported by Microsoft Office.
The state on Wednesday posted the final version of its Enterprise
Technical Reference Model, which mandates new document formats for
office productivity applications.
As it proposed late last month before a comment period, Massachusetts
has decided to use only products that conform to the Open Document
Format for Office Applications, or OpenDocument, which is developed
by the standards body OASIS.
State agencies in the executive branch are now supposed to migrate to
OpenDocument-compliant applications by Jan. 1, 2007, a change that
will affect about 50,000 desktop PCs. The reference model also
confirms that Adobe's PDF format is considered an "open format."
Some observers have praised the move as a bold step toward breaking
Microsoft's monopoly on desktop applications. The state says it will
save money by migrating to OpenDocuments-based products rather than
to Office 12. Others argue that the decision to use only
OpenDocuments-based products severely narrows the state's options.
More stories on this topic
The move to adopt OpenDocument shuts Microsoft out of the state's
procurement process because the software giant, which dominates the
office application market, has said it does not intend to support the
OpenDocument format.
Microsoft's Office 12, which is due in the second half of next year,
will store Office documents in an XML format. XML is also the basis
of OpenDocument. However, Microsoft executives have consistently said
that the company will not support OpenDocument natively and rely
instead on "filters" to convert formats.
OpenDocument is used in open-source application products, such as
OpenOffice and variants of it from companies including Sun
Microsystems, IBM and Novell.
On Friday, a Microsoft manager questioned whether the IT division's
technical reference model is really the last word on state policy.
"We understand that this is not a final decision for the commonwealth
and that state lawmakers and the secretary of state have raised some
of the same questions and concerns about this proposal that many
others have raised," Alan Yates, Microsoft general manager of
information worker business strategy, said in a statement. "Some in
state government have talked about potential hearings to delve into
this issue further, and we encourage that additional public review
and evaluation."
Even before finalizing its plan, Massachusetts' embrace of
OpenDocument has stirred strong reactions, both positive and negative.
Some have praised the state's policies as the best way to break
Microsoft's monopolistic control of the PC software market. Others,
including Microsoft and software industry groups, have criticized the
state, saying its decisions narrow choices to open-source products.
"The commonwealth's decision is a watershed event for the adoption of
open standards," Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards, said
in an e-mail Friday. "Massachusetts residents, rather than any one
vendor, now control their own information."
The OpenDocument format is being considered by some European
governments, including Norway, Denmark and Japan, as well as other
U.S. state governments, an IBM representative said.
Meanwhile, foes of Massachusetts' policy said the state is acting
unfairly.
During a hearing regarding the proposal last week, Jonathan Zuck,
president of the Association for Competitive Technology, said that
Massachusetts was moving ahead with a policy before it had adequately
considered the cost or the potential impact.
He also questioned the state's endorsement of Adobe PDF and the
decision to rely on standards organizations.
"You seem to have selectively chosen one format (Adobe's PDF) that
has some IP associated with (it) and said, 'That's OK, but this one
(Microsoft Office) isn't.' So I'm curious about the consistency,"
Zuck told Peter Quinn, the state's CIO, and Eric Kriss, the state's
secretary of administration and finance. "We all know that standards
groups are not hives of innovation by any means."
Massachusetts officials defended their decision, saying the move will
save the state money, make sure that state records will be preserved
over time, and ensure the state's "sovereignty."
In a FAQ, the state's Information Technology Division said that
current users of Microsoft Office in executive-branch agencies do not
necessarily need to uninstall Office. "Use of existing MS Office
licenses is allowed as long as agencies use a method permitting the
saving of documents in Open Document Format," the FAQ said. Third-
party products could in theory perform a conversion from Office to
OpenDocument formats.
In addition, Microsoft could still become part of the state's
procurement policy by meeting its definition of open formats, Kriss
said at an open-format meeting, which was held last Friday with the
Mass Technology Leadership Council.
Kriss said that Microsoft's Office formats would have to be free of
or have minimal legal encumbrances and be a standard that is subject
to peer review by organizations outside Microsoft. He added that
Microsoft document formats would have to be subject to "joint
stewardship" by a standards body not controlled by one company or a
small consortium.
"If you were to do (those things), we would be delighted to do a
technical comparison of your standards and the OpenDocument
standard," Kriss said, addressing a Microsoft representative. He
added that the question is a "moving target" because Microsoft has
already made some modifications to its patent policy.
On the question of why Adobe's PDF format meets the definition of
"open format," state officials said it was a "gray area" but that
Adobe's legal and licensing terms were deemed sufficiently open.
During the hearing, Kriss said that the state would save
significantly by migrating to OpenDocument-based products rather than
going with Office 12--on the order of $5 million for OpenDocument
versus $50 million for Office 12, including hardware and operating-
system upgrade costs.
But he said that fundamentally the state's policy is based in the
notion of sovereignty.
"Here we have a true conflict between the notion of intellectual
property and the notion of sovereignty, and I'd say that 100 percent
of the time in a democracy, sovereignty trumps intellectual
property," Kriss said. "That's the issue we're grappling with."
Copyright ©1995-2005 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
---
You are currently subscribed to telecom-cities as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To
unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Manage your mail settings at
http://forums.nyu.edu/cgi-bin/nyu.pl?enter=telecom-cities
RSS feed of list traffic:
http://www.mail-archive.com/telecom-cities@forums.nyu.edu/maillist.xml
