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Massachusetts goes with the OpenDocument

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2005-09-02

They mandate that all state organisations should use open standards for their documents, and specifically do not include upcoming MSOffice v12 XML formats. Wow. I think this is great news.

The only reason Microsoft is doing the XML file formats in Office v12 is because of the threat of things like this. This will force them to be even more open.

The costs of converting legacy MSOffice doc's certainly aren't as big an issue as people are making out. MA certainly has lots of documents in non-MS formats too. It might as well switch to a format that is going to be around for the long haul.

Of course, they could invest millions in trying to figure out some other way to permanently archive government records, like the state of Washington.

Other coverage from around the web:

• Massachusetts Information Technology Division - the Enterprise Technical Reference Model with the details.
• Stephen O'Grady - asking the $64K question: will Microsoft support the OpenDocument file format? There is certainly no technical reason they can't (Chris Pratley: look for the part about the WordPerfect file format).
• Brian Jones - Microsoft Program Manager for Office v12 XML comes out with a rebuttal: "Wait till the next version, when everything will be better". Lame.
• ZDNet UK editorial - Great quote: what happened to "the customer is always right"?
• Adam Barr - also from Microsoft, but with some credentials, points out that it does not specifically exclude Microsoft Office, but of course he is assuming that Microsoft answers the $64K question correctly.
• Slashdot discussion - lots of blather, but some interesting stories too.
• Groklaw - not much new, but lots of relevant links.

Tags: standard

File Formats: MSWORD OpenDocument