Blackmoor Vituperative

Last Friday, the state of Massachusetts made it official: effective 2007-01-01, it will use only nonproprietary document formats in state-affiliated offices. Let’s hope that other government agencies follow Massachusetts’ common-sense lead.

[State CIO Peter Quinn] told DesktopLinux.com earlier this month that he challenged Microsoft and other companies who sell software that uses proprietary document formats to consider enabling open-format options as soon as possible. Quinn said that “government is creating history at a rapidly increasing rate, and all documents we save must be accessible to everybody, without having to use ‘closed’ software to open them now and in the future.” …

“Microsoft has remade the desktop world,” Quinn said. “But if you’ve watched history, there’s a slag heap of proprietary companies who have fallen by the wayside because they were stuck in their ways. Just look at the minicomputer business, for example. The world is about open standards and open source. I can’t understand why anybody would want to continue making closed-format documents anymore.”

(from eWeek, Massachusetts Verdict: MS Office Formats Out)

Step up to the plate, Virginia.