On Wed, 2005-28-09 at 11:14 -0500, Mike McCarty wrote: > Fajar Priyanto wrote: > > The future is forming up.... > > > > http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1863060,00.asp > > > > The state of Massachusetts Friday made it official: It will use only > > nonproprietary document formats in state-affiliated offices effective Jan. 1, > > 2007. Although state CIO Peter Quinn has said repeatedly that this issue does > > not represent "the state versus Microsoft Corp. —or any one company," > > adoption of the long-debated plan may result in all versions of Microsoft's > > Office productivity suite being phased out of use throughout the state's > > executive branch agencies. > > Or MS could "open" its document format... > > [snip] > > Mike If you read the articles on this, that is not an option. Massachusetts has adopted the Open Document Format and expects the vendors to support that format. All documents used by the state must use ODF or PDF format, so that they are "future safe". The Open Document Format was developed by an international committee, and was intended to be openly defined and available for use without restriction or royalty. Even if MS opened their formats, it is unlikely they would have given up all legal claims and patents to anyone who wanted to use it for their own products. Besides there is already an available set of formats that provide the features and requirements desired. If MS supports the format they will be able to contend for software contracts, if they don't then they will not be allowed. The notion that features are tied to the document format hold little value. Most features are just designed to make manual tasks simpler, but do not affect the well known and defined methods for typesetting and laying out documents. Having not read the ODF specs I can not comment on how it deals with linked data from other documents, but it would be fair to presume that considerations were made for linked and embedded data. I can only hope that all levels of Government everywhere do the same thing. Contrary to Microsofts spin, this will improve competition and be good for all effected economies.
