![[x]](/images/sigil_md.jpg)
Blackmoor VituperativeMassachusetts to adopt ‘open’ desktop
In a spectacular demonstration of amazingly good sense, the commonwealth of Massachusetts has proposed a plan to phase out office productivity applications from Microsoft and other providers in favor of those based on “open” standards, including the recently approved OpenDocument standard.
The state’s move is a boost to the relatively new standard, whose full name is the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications. It’s also a blow to Microsoft, which dominates the office application market and has found government customers to be among those most aggressively considering open-source alternatives.
The OpenDocument format, which was ratified as a standard in May, covers office applications, including word processors, spreadsheets and charts.
It is the default format for the OpenOffice open-source suite of applications and is supported in suites by Novell and Sun Microsystems and by IBM in its Workplace products.
Microsoft responded with the usual FUD, of course:
Alan Yates, Microsoft’s general manager of Information Worker business strategy, criticized the Massachusetts proposal, saying it was “confusing”. …
Yates reiterated the Microsoft does not intend to natively support the OpenDocument format, which he said was very specific to the OpenOffice 2.0 open-source suite.
He said Microsoft can provide the same data interoperability and archiving that Massachusetts is pursuing because Microsoft publishes the XML schema of its Office applications and makes available through a royalty free license.
This is terrific news, I heartily commend the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I hope that Virginia follows their lead. It kind of reminds me of that poster with the little white mouse and the hawk, though. You know the one: the hawk is swooping down, and the mouse is about to be caught and eaten, but the mouse is giving the hawk the finger. At the top of the poster is the word “DEFIANCE”.
