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Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Jun 03, 2007 07:16 PM
from the best-paid-suits dept.
from the best-paid-suits dept.
ajanp writes "Computerworld discusses the defeat of pro-ODF legislation in the states of California, Florida, Texas, Oregon, and Connecticut which 'would have required state agencies to use freely available and interoperable file formats, such as the Open Document Format for Office Applications, instead of Microsoft Corp.'s proprietary Office formats.' A similar bill in Minnesota was changed to study the issue instead. There was heavy lobbying being done in private on both sides with one problem being 'the jargon-laden disinformation that committee members felt they were being fed by lobbyists for both IBM and Microsoft. Although lobbyists would tell the committee one thing in private, they got cold feet when asked to verify the information publicly, under oath.' However, 'Despite the string of defeats, Marino Marcich, executive director of the Washington-based ODF Alliance, said the legislative fight has only begun.'"
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Politics: Microsoft's 'Men in Black' Kill Florida Open Standards Legislation 320 comments
A NewsForge article was handed to us talking about pressure Microsoft recently brought to bear on a piece of Florida legislation. A few short paragraphs in Senate bill 1974 added by Rep. Ed Homan discussed the need for open data formats, but Microsoft's men in black responded by pressuring legislators and staff employees about the bill's language. "A legislative staff employee who would lose his job if he were quoted here by name said, 'By the time those lobbyists were done talking, it sounded like ODF (Open Document Format, the free and open format used by OpenOffice.org and other free software) was proprietary and the Microsoft format was the open and free one.' Two other legislative employees (who must also remain anonymous) told Linux.com that the Microsoft lobbyists implied that elected representatives who voted against Microsoft's interests might have a little more trouble raising campaign funds than they would if they helped the IT giant achieve its Florida goals. Note that lobbyists for IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Novell -- the only three companies with a major interest in open source who have registered lobbyists in Florida -- did not weigh in on this matter." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.
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Politics: New York Jumps Into Open Formats Fray 184 comments
cyrusmack writes "Hot on the heels of the bad news regarding the defeat of all open formats bills, New York has become the latest in an area that has seen a flurry of activity already this year. In the article on InfoWorld, it's pretty clear that this bill is significantly watered down from what other states have attempted to do this year. You can bet Microsoft will be there in force, just as it has been elsewhere."
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Politics: Massachusetts Likely To Approve OOXML 164 comments
Ian Lamont writes "The IT department of the state government of Massachusetts has designated Microsoft's Office Open XML as an open document format, along with ODF, plain text, and HTML. It's only a draft policy, but it sets the stage for the format being given an official stamp of approval by state authorities — and weakens earlier Massachusetts support for the Open Document Format. Microsoft got a big boost at the end of 2006 when Ecma approved OOXML, and again this spring when pro-ODF legislation was being defeated or watered down in six states."
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deep pockets (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:deep pockets (Score:5, Funny)
will determine the outcome. It's the American way.
Oh shit, there goes my karma.
I'm not from America (Score:2)
But when I read the summation of state names that rejected ODF it rang a bell.
Are these some of the most republican states?
Re:I'm not from America (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep up the pressure. Eventually, it'll work (Score:4, Insightful)
ODF needs to do this, too. Keep it up and one year real soon, they'll win and it's over.
Re:I'm not from America (Score:4, Informative)
oregon is a little democratic
florida is a little republican
texas is very republican
Minnesota is a swing state.
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Re:I'm not from America (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, in a democracy, all citizens have a right to access government documents. That includes Linux users, people who can't afford to spend $300 on Office, blind people (using specialized software), and people 50 years in the future (long after any proprietary format becomes unreadable -- try opening a WordStar or Word/DOS document in Word 2007 and see how far you get, for example).
Proprietary formats -- all proprietary formats, without exception -- cannot fulfill this requirement by definition.
(Incidentally, Office-type formats are really the least of our worries. Government should be prohibited from accepting building plans in the form of proprietary AutoCAD DWG files, etc. too.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Florida - Not sure about the state legislature, but this is a swing state.
Texas - Heavily Republican.
Oregon - Blue state, although no California...
Connecticut - Blue again.
Minnesota - Last I lived there house was red, senate blu
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't Worry (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't Worry (Score:5, Funny)
Write to your reps (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Write to your reps (Score:4, Interesting)
If anything the losses in state legislature open the door for class action law suits and forces every corporation involved to put forward their views in public and under oath. So while it might be a struggle in politics it should be far easier in the courts.
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Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act? Governmental transparency is a prerequisite of freedom, and in a transparent government all documents, including "internal" ones, are potentially released. Therefore, all documents, including "internal" ones, need to be in open formats.
When you get right down to it, proprietary formats are un-American.
Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Insightful)
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But if some clerk used Word 6 back in 92, and that file has been in use since then, being updated by successive clerks, that
Fuck you. M$ is the bad guy here. (Score:3, Insightful)
the Reps admit to being technically clueless and correctly point out that they should not be choosing technical formats.
It's not a technical question. The issue is getting away from a single vendor lock in that limits choice. I'm a GNU/Linux user and
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Not practical (Score:3, Insightful)
So, MS-Office is a drug? (Score:2)
Just like cocaine... hmm, I see, perhaps you are right. But, wait, when a cause is worthwhile shouldn't we at least try before giving it up as "not practical"?
Wait, there's a difference (Score:3, Insightful)
The "war on drugs" failed because it's impossible to identify and arrest every drug lord hiding somewhere in the South American jungles. In the case of office file format
Actually (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not practical (Score:5, Interesting)
Your client management suite should be able to do this in about an hour, including testing time. What, you don't push your software? Compared to the cost of 100 seat licenses for Office, a software push / update is trivial.
then top it off with a mention that there is no real way to regulate attachments coming from outside and this is DOA in any local govt.
You don't need to. You can keep going with Word for the time being for recieving attachments, but the agencies would be required to internally communicate and send out communications in a format that anyone could read.
The idea is not to kill microsoft. The idea is to push government agencies and the software suppliers that support them to use and create document formats that we have a hope of reading in 10 or 20 years (let alone 200). Can you imagine if the US constitution was written in Symantec Greatworks? Or if key data from 50 years in the past was written in GobeProductive on BeOS? If Microsoft adopts a truly open format that satisfies this need for transparency and readability, then that's great! But if not, we shouldn't be tying ourselves to them to fill a need they don't want to fill.
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At the risk of being modded a tro
Stupid Politicians... (Score:3, Insightful)
Problem with definition... (Score:2)
(Taken from the intro to the Oregon legislation, not sure if the other states are similar or not.)
Why does it matter if it was developed or updated by
Where have we heard this one before? (Score:5, Interesting)
All kidding aside, what makes this fight different from the usual standards wars is that it's not between two companies trying to pitch different standards like Beta and VHS or BlueRay and HDDVD. In that kind of fight, whoever wins, the victor is still going to be a giant corporation. For the buying public it's truly a case of same shit, different pile. ODF isn't just a product being shilled by a single corporation and so there's no single company to bankrupt or buy out so victory can be declared. I think this is going to be more like guerrilla warfare than a conventional battle.
I predict that there will be many, many more defeats for ODF legislation, especially in the US. The question is whether there will be a victory or failure after all those defeats. Microsoft certainly has the dollars in this fight. There's the old quote from Vietnam, allegedly from when both sides were having a talk after the final peace was declared. A Col. Summers had a chat with General Giap. "You know you never defeated us in the field," Summers said. "That may be true, but it is also irrelevant," Giap replied.
No matter which way it goes, this war is going to be interesting to watch.
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In the case of Texas... (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at the links for Texas, it appears that the two bills in question, SB 446 [state.tx.us] and HB 1794 [state.tx.us] are not "defeated", but instead just pending in committee. I'm not naïve enough to believe they couldn't be left there, but they've *not* been voted down explicitly yet...
Write/email your local representative!Re:In the case of Texas... (Score:4, Informative)
"The committee," he said, "wanted a flat-out answer from the DIR. 'Was [moving to open document formats] something we should be doing right now? And did they need the backing of the committee to do it?' The answer in both cases was, 'No.'"
That's not to say you shouldn't write your local Texas Rep if you support either Microsoft's or IBM's position, but for now, the bill has been "quashed".
Seeing things like this (Score:3, Insightful)
Though one could also argue there is no fundamental difference between the two. If nothing else Scientology has certainly blurred the line a bit.
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I really don't
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No, OOXML is M$ only. (Score:3, Interesting)
An AC has the nerve to say OOXML is usable:
your comment that only MS can use MS formats is a red-herring
Show me working Mac and GNU/Linux editors. No, I don't mean the pathetic half done Word readers from Novel and M$, I mean full working office suits
OMG, the AC Persists. (Score:4, Interesting)
As for your link, it doesn't state that they can't unzip the DOCX .... blah blah blah
What it shows is that you can't get the text out, which is all the man wanted. How's that for Open?
Just stop while you are behind! Those "few minor obsolete" things are people's work that M$ should have translated for them not thrown away. But M$ can't do that because their formats are mutually contradictory. That's why much of their spec simply states do it like prints of the old versions without further explanation. [slashdot.org]
The OOXML propaganda is bigger and dirtier than Mnt. San Diego [latimes.com] but will cost much more. You just can't wash this stuff and the truth will be out soon enough. Microsoft has wasted their time and money making yet another M$ only format and they should be punished by market rejection, not rewarded with state money.
Re:UGH! Open Formats Do Not Limit Choice! (Score:5, Interesting)
WMV support is built into Windows Media Player. The files are binary, if you look at them in a hex editor, they're generally plain numbers. Which is to say, JUST AS READABLE AS MPEG.
Except not, unless you are a fucking moron. I'm sorry, but XML is not magic open interoperability pixie dust.
Nope. Nice try, though.
What actually happened was, MS looked at ODF, but felt that since it threatened their monopoly of Office applications, they wanted their own "standard" that they could control.
Or maybe they did it by accident. (Yeah, right.)
ODF was designed to be all things to all office suites. OOXML was designed to basically be an XML dump of MS Office documents, and from what I have heard (and seen), it's little more than a straight 1:1 conversion of the binary Office format into XML.
I suggest you go actually try to read the OOXML "open standard", and understand why it is neither. It has little to do with the 6000 pages, it's about how little is actually in that 6000 page document.
No. We complain that it is not a standard, and not suitable for implementation in anything but MS Office.
The problem is not that it supports all these various iterations of Office, and even older things (WordPerfect, etc). The problem is that they support these by creating some sort of tag or attribute or something which flags a section as being formatted for Word95 or somesuch, and then don't define how to do that. They basically say it's "beyond the scope of this document", and that you should emulate the behavior of the software in question.
And this is not the right way to design a standard format anyway. Suppose different versions of Word came with different default heading styles. You could just put <word95heading> tags around something -- or you could use a format that supports defining custom styles.
That's true, we can reverse-engineer MS formats, and have done so. Most open office suites (OpenOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, etc) support the binary Office formats quite well. But it's still reverse-engineered, and still not complete.
It would be entirely possible to make a document standard that is just as flexible, concise, and transparent as ODF, but support all of the crap that OOXML does. The difference is, it would be much more difficult for MS to support such a standard, and much easier for everyone else. As it is, OOXML is much easier for Microsoft to implement than for anyone else.
Consider that, in order to fully support OOXML, you have to actually go and buy all of those different versions of Office, plus random crap like WordPerfect, and reverse-engineer their behavior. So OOXML is not any better than the binary formats, because in reality, you may actually have to reverse-engineer MORE products in order to make it work.
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Re:ODF is bullshit, use HTML (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sure they will. In fact, they'll assume it.
Basically, they will either assume that they can't make it into a webpage (becau
WYSIWYG Harmful (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/wp.html [wfu.edu]
Case in point : my wife filled in a job application last night. The application form was a Word document (as RTF, but RTF is just a different Word format). It took her about 3 hours, and the vast majority of the time was spent transcribing information out of her CV (also a Word document) and mucking about with the formatting. She didn't at any point write any new content ; the application just wanted the form filling in, and a copy of her CV, which contained most of the data in the form to start with. And this took three hours, lots of head scratching, brow furrowing and swearing at her laptop. Wifey is not a natural computer user, but I reckon I would still have taken about 2 hours doing the same thing, with most of the time difference accounted for by use of shortcut keys and my faster typing. I would not have been performing a different task set, since there really wasn't any clever magic that would have prevented me having to do the same thing and manually transcribe everything out of her CV into the form.
What SHOULD have happened is that either the form would have been aware of typical CV data, my wife would have had a CV written in a format that understands CV data, and a button click would have filled in the form from the CV file. Or even better, the job application would just take a CV file and a covering note. The process would have taken 5 minutes instead of 3 hours, and my wife could have gotten back to enjoying a glass of wine and an episode or two of Ugly Betty. Job applications are a well-understood application domain with millions of users, but the only support Word provides for a CV is a template that provides visual formatting and ONLY visual formatting.
When my wife writes documents she obsesses about the formatting during the writing. This disrupts her flow of composition and stresses her out immensely. I really think she would benefit from using TeX instead, especially since she mostly writes academic papers. But she's stuck with the WYSIWYG paradigm because that's all she knows, and she's not willing to make an investment in computer time to improve her productivity.
I used to use WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS at university, which was probably more productive than Word. A white-on-blue plaintext terminal screen, you concentrated solely on document structure. These days the vast majority of text I type goes into an IDE, a Notepad2 window, or one of the incarnations of vim. Using HTML, even in an HTML editor, would not improve matters for me at all.
The next great phase of office productivity will come from documents with intelligent markup that states what the content is and not just what it should look like.
looks like a bad law anyway (Score:3, Interesting)
Second of all, "file format used by only one vendor" doesn't disqualify Microsoft's OO-XML. Remember, Novell will be supporting it.
Third of all,
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