Massachusetts: MS Open XML Now in Equal Standing with ODF
The Massachusetts IT Division published many of the comments it received from the public – many from outside the state, some from outside the US – after its publication of the draft 4.0 specification last month. Letters supporting the state’s decision tended to float to the top of the list, though later items turned out to be overwhelmingly and vehemently opposed to the consideration of Microsoft in conjunction with anything claiming to be “open.”
In his comment, Lee Braiden referred to Massachusetts’ former CIO, Peter Quinn, who resigned two years ago amid controversy that erupted after he took a stand on behalf of the state on behalf of ODF and against OOXML. Quinn was the subject of an official review, as a result of accusations made in a Boston Globe article, though he was later cleared of all charges. Braiden wrote in part:
It was undoubtedly Peter Quinn's clarity on this issue - that checks and balances of the standard itself were needed to ensure a proper solution - that threatened Microsoft's (greatly undeserved) monopoly over document storage. Threatened as it should, I might add, as Microsoft's approach does not serve the public, as a public body's document storage should. Microsoft play hardball when an issue could lose them millions of dollars, and that is precisely why his job was jeopardized. Make no mistake about that.
Chris Clark, a member of a UK-based marketing agency, cited a blog post by Microsoft Office engineer Brian Jones, which addressed a number of alleged Excel 2007 bugs brought up by IBM performance architect Rob Weir – an outspoken critic of OOXML. Clark wrote in part:
One e-mail was received that, either intentionally or through an omission of formatting codes (ironically) resulted in a single eight-page paragraph, often omitting punctuation and occasionally including spurious references to unrelated issues. Here’s a sample:
This particular submission actually did not set the record for paragraph length; the ITD also published four copies of an identical letter, perhaps sent from the same e-mail server, also in opposition to OOXML, which was – with only slight exceptions – a single 12-page paragraph.
Donald Kulinski called to memory (albeit to a slightly defective unit of memory) the words of Henry David Thoreau in praising the State’s draft:
Software developer Steve Worley contributed the following:
Francesco Fiore, a resident of Massachusetts, wrote the following in support of the draft:
Finally, Massachusetts resident Ryan Norbauer questioned whether the inclusion of converters in certain applications (Office 2003 comes to mind) truly qualifies as support for a format, regardless of whether the ISO adopts it as a global standard:
History has shown that the sale or release of "converters" is merely a dishonest way of placating organizations into accepting non-standard formats. They rarely work properly, but more importantly, the extra overhead means there are even less frequently actually used. If we are to commit to open standards, as we should, then not only is the addition of a corporate-defined standard unhelpful and a drain on productivity, I believe it actually does real harm to the open international standards themselves.