Massachusetts sides with Microsoft in document debate
Massachusetts has changed its technology policy to accept a Microsoft-developed document format, Office Open XML, amid fractious industry debate.
The state's Information Technology Division posted on Wednesday a letter outlining its reasons for including Office Open XML within its technical architecture and responded to critics who argued that the move is a step backward from its high-profile standards-based policy.
Two years ago, Massachusetts created a technical architecture based on standards, including those for desktop productivity applications. As the document formats in Microsoft Office were not standard, the state chose the existing standard, OpenDocument format, or ODF.
Since then, however, Open XML has been ratified as a standard by European group Ecma International and is in the process of seeking standardization at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
In its letter, state officials said that its inclusion of both document formats--Open XML and ODF--was done for technical reasons and without vendor bias.
Concerns over shortcomings in either format are best sorted out in standards bodies, according to a letter signed by Henry Dormitzer, undersecretary of administration and finance and Bethann Pepoli, the acting chief information officer.
"We believe that the impact of any legitimate concerns raised about either standard is outweighed substantially by the benefits of moving toward open, XML-based document format standards," the letter said.
The decision in Massachusetts is a clear victory for Microsoft. Rival ODF is developed by competing vendors through a standards group and is the default format in the open-source OpenOffice desktop application package.
Microsoft executives have been lobbying state officials for a number of years as it developed its technology policy. The choice of digital document formats can dictate the choice of desktop software and a number of government customers, particularly in Europe, have chosen ODF as an acceptable standard.
Wednesday's move was not a total surprise. Last month, Massachusetts proposed accepting Open XML and asked for feedback.
And regardless of document format, Pepoli said last month, government employees affected by the technology policy will continue to use Microsoft Office as their desktop application suite--its current product. That's because Office has features that meet the needs of people with disabilities, she said.
Tom Robertson, general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft, lauded Wednesday's move, saying it "reflects the fact that formats will evolve over time and that approved standards lists should also evolve."
Advocates of ODF complained that the decision does not live up to the state's original directive of using only "open standards." Open XML is an Ecma standard, developed with participation of other vendors than Microsoft, but critics say that ODF has been developed in a more open process.
"Massachusetts--or, more properly, a small number of courageous public servants--did something important two years ago when they took a stand for open formats. It is regrettable that their successors have seen fit to abandon that principled stance," said attorney and ODF advocate Andrew Updegrove, who writes a blog on industry standards.
Updegrove added that Massachusetts could have waited as little as one month to see if Open XML will stand up to scrutiny of the rigorous ISO global standardization process.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
It disregards what's happening out in the marketplace. So, by enshrining that into a reference model - while nice, safe and fashionable now - what results is ultimately a myopic approach, which will work to hamstring officials, taxpayers and the marketplace in the long run.
Don't get me wrong, the ETRM is more flexible and better than it was. That said, isn't the long-run what the ETRM is about? Yet, how can it truly arrive there when it's stuck on just one way to interoperate - i.e., through open standards?
I guess I should be satisfied that technology will largely ignore these mandates. But, they're tremendously disruptive, and false roads to "freedom".
The whole point of open standards is not just interoperability, but the ability to augment the standard in the future. Just like HTML has evolved, ODF can evolve as different needs/technologies arise. Contrary-wise, a proprietary format (read: Microsoft Office) forces you to follow that one format, by that one company, for as long as they offer it, which can change, therefore forcing you to change... *That* seems rather myopic to me.
So I'd have to disagree with you. Placing open standards into gov't areas is ideal, since you want that information to be as accessible as possible, to everyone. The only problem remaining are multiple govern bodies (states/cities/etc.) having different models, approaches, and/or adoption times. Either way, I think it's a good start.
Since then, however, Open XML has been ratified as a standard by European group Ecma International and is in the process of seeking standardization at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)...."
As a point of reference here is an extract from a 1998 Lotus Development Corporation communication; Re: "Concerning the issues with 1-2-3 that are talked about in the documentation you gave me, most of the issues are related to converting files between older and newer versions of product and converting documents between Lotus and Microsoft. Anytime a file is saved backwards or saved with an older file format than the format the file was created under, such as saving a 1-2-3 , 97 file for Windows 95 into a WK1 format for DOS, then naturally we are expected to loose certain features due to technology and features that are present now that were not present 8 - 10 years ago. Similarly, if we try to convert a file from Lotus into Excel or Excel into Lotus, due to differences in the products not every feature will be converted perfectly with the file filters that are available. Both Lotus and Microsoft create similar spreadsheet programs; however, there are several differences in both programs and these differences will remain to distinguish the products apart. We do try to design conversion filters that will allow as much of the file formats as possible to be exchanged and converted without disrupting the actual file design and format.
In one of your letters you made mention of the @IRR and @ERR functions in the 1-2-3 product. By design the @IRR (notably "absent" in Open Office) will calculate the Internal Rate of Return; where the @ERR is used in conjunction with other formulas, posted was an "ERR" showing an error was received in the calculations. As far as I can see in the program I cannot find an @ERR function that will allow us to calculate an Economic Rate of Return"
As per the subject line: "Think "Massachusetts" Knows It All - Think Again!" No, not them ("Massachusetts"), not the Microsoft Corporation; or, even the "European group ECMA International"!
When we do our policy is to click reply and tell them to please resend as an rtf.
* Gnumeric has limited SpreadsheetML markup language support. http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/
* Novell has created an Office Open XML plugin for the Novell edition of OpenOffice.org. http://download.novell.com/SummaryFree.jsp?buildid=ESrjfdE4U58~ An Office Open XML import filter is slated for inclusion in version 2.3 of the OpenOffice.org project. http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=79123
* Panergy Ltd. has developed a converter from WordprocessingML markup language to Rich Text Format (RTF). The converter, called docXConverter, allows Word versions that are not supported by Microsoft's compatibility pack, e.g. Word 97, to open OOXML files containing WordprocessingML markup language. DocXConverter can be used to transfer WordprocessingML data to other applications that read RTF data. http://www.panergy-software.com/products/docxconverter/features.html
* Apple Inc.'s TextEdit will support Office Open XML in the next version of OS X, Leopard. http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/12/8702/
* Apple Inc.'s iPhone supports Office Open XML attachments in emails http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/iPhone_User_Guide.pdf#page=48
* Datavis' DocumentsToGo for PalmOS supports Office Open XML documents. http://www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/premium/index.html
* Datawatch supports Office Open XML spreadsheets in its report mining tool Monarch v9.0 http://www.datawatch.com/datawatch/news.asp?display=detail&id=128
http://www.openxml.biz/ Open XML Writer is one of the first open source OOXML aka Open XML document writers and text editor.
Do you Microsoft Haters ever tire of being wrong? Ralfthedog and Spock, wrong 99.999% of the time.
ODF is a standard format. By supporting both, the state is not
locking themselves into either direction and therefore can make
more informed choices with more options for satisfying their
needs. I am by no means a Microsoft Fanboy (I have been an
avid Macintosh user for the last several years.) but, when you
take into account the current state of the world you cannot
discount Microsoft and its products. They are far too ingrained
in the current computing culture. The open source community
should be happy they are supporting ODF at all. From an
executive standpoint, there wouldn't be much for them to lose
by just supporting XML because, if the standard stays around, it
will be compatible with everything anyway. Eventually.
OOXML is full of tags that simply refer to proprietary programs: Display Footnote like Word 95, Wrap Like Word Perfect 6.0, etc. The semantics are explicitly not part of the spec. This lets them take MS-specific undocumented behavior and encapsulate it inside a tag that others cannot implement from the spec; they'd have to reverse-engineer it just like the old .DOC spec.
It would be entirely within the spirit of OOXLM to simply have a tag named "Word 2003 DOC format" and insert a .DOC file, verbatim or perhaps with some minor tweaks (akin to MIME) to fit within XML's syntax rules. They only do it now for some elements of a file, but once you allow some secret format tags, you are no longer an open standard.
Massachusetts has a fair number of corrupt pols who happily take MS money in exchange for rulings like this, and who put pressure on IT pros who oppose them. They pay the state IT staff badly and have trouble maintaining professionalism when jobs are given to cronies. So don't take it as an indication that somebody did a serious evaluation of OOXML's merits. Take it as a pure, unvarnished power play: Don't Mess with Bill, or your state career will be at risk.
Wednesday's move was not a total surprise. Last month, Massachusetts proposed accepting Open XML and asked for feedback... Well, here is some feedback - How is it that Code-Base Lotus SmartSuite (Microsoft Office and Open Office.org) can tell the "true/real" STORY when "OPEN LOTUS SMARTSUITE" will be the one that should know it all! So, just what is the "Commonwealth of Massachusetts' story? Can you see the "PICTURE"!
Next time use proper paragraph formatting and quotes so we can understand what it is you are saying.
Go to Word 2007, or Word 2000 to 2003 with the OOXML format converters, save a DOCX file format as test.docx.
Now rename it to test.zip and open it up with whatever unzip program you want, and see what is inside of it.
*.XML files, which are text files with XML markup tags in different directories.
That's it! There is no way Microsoft can stop anyone from unzipping the file, and change the text settings in the XML files or read those XML files.
Anyone who knows how to work zip files and XML files can write a program to read/write OOXML format documents in the docx format. But I'll bet you Microsoft haters aren't programmers like me who know how to do those sort of things?
Spock and Ralfthedog seem like Luddites that just attack anything not OS/2 not from IBM and anything Microsoft or Windows or even Linux. I doubt they even hardly know how to administrate OS/2 itself, and they refuse to admit that OS/2 was based on MS-DOS and Windows, which were based on Q-DOS/86-DOS which was based on CP/M-86. Heck OS/2 didn't even get a GUI until 1.2 and it borrowed it from Windows 286/386 around version 2.0 of Windows. Windows was based on the Xerox PARC Star and Alto series, Apple Macintosh, and Commodore Amiga, and OS/2 stole from those systems as well.
MS-OOXML steals from the zip and XML file formats, which are already open document formats, so what is all of the fuss about?
Perhaps, in its next life the Ship's Masters will be careful in their observation of details when deciding to "duplicate" a product not of their innovation (Lotus SmartSuite for example). As to why Linux is where it is apparently -- is better know to Microsoft, IBM and the Linux Communities. You can spill all the FUD but you cannot change the "History Of the legendary OS/2 Operating System as it is just a few "GOOGLE" clicks away for all to read and know the real truth about the History of the PC Story:
http://www.os2bbs.com/os2news/OS2History.html
- by manjeet_i2001 July 16, 2008 4:39 PM PDT
- Massachusetts has changed its technology policy to accept a Microsoft-developed document format, Office Open XML, amid fractious industry debate. The state's Information Technology Division posted on Wednesday a letter outlining its reasons for including Office Open XML within its technical architecture and responded to critics who argued that the move is a step backward from its high-profile standards-based policy.
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