Comments on: Massachusetts says it's open to multiple formats

State senators air the issues around its decision to use OpenDocument as the default desktop application format.

[JulesLt]

Quote of 2005

That's definitely it :
"My definition of open is that I don't have to buy the new version to
get to old records."

Yep, that shows real insight and understanding of the issues.

[kensystem]

MS Office? what's that?

Why bother using it if you can do *nearly*... or everything you need using OpenOffice? Do you like to pay money for a black box?

My company has had no trouble converting to OpenOffice - even telling users to install openoffice to read *standard* document types that M$Office cant read. And for the truly, truly hardware MS loyalists, OpenOffice just exports to that closed format.

[mikewilliam]

In 2006, Open Office.Org has been affected only by 5 vulnerabilities for the total of the three versions still available in the market, while its largest competitor ? a proprietary application ? has been affected by 67 vulnerabilities. This makes this software a leader of a very uncomfortable category.
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Mikewilliams

Massachusetts Treatment Centers

[dcparris]

Cote is Clueless

Does Cote have any idea what he just said?

[Had_to_be_said]

If its proprietary, it is NOT an "open standard"...

If there are multiple standards, then it isnt "a standard", at all. And, if it is not an "Open Standard", then government documents should not use it.

Its that simple.

In fact, this whole debacle really is a simple issue...

Government documents, and the citizens that MUST access them, must not be held hostage by proprietary-standards that allow ANY company to, in any way, control, manipulate, forcibly extract revenue from, or endanger future access to such publicly-owned information.

There is no legitimate technical reason why Microsoft is refusing to support an "Open Document Standard". In fact, it is Microsoft who was intentionally cutting themselves out of a potential-market. Which leads to the REAL question: Why is Microsoft so bound and determined to refuse to compete fairly?

Nor, is there any practical-reason why Massachusetts should CAVE-IN, on this simple-point.

This looks like just another case of an American governmental-bureaucracys RESOLVE crumbling in the face of a powerful-corporations monetary-might, pure and simple.

Frankly, Microsofts pathetic sham of submitting for an "Ecma" standard, changes nothing about the real situation, or the fact that we are actually, once again, being forced to deal with one companys, illegally created and maintained MONOPOLY-POWER, and the governmental-duplicity which fosters it.

Too bad it will be the citizens that will once again be SCREWED by such corporate self-interest, and Government CORRUPTION.