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Software Government Politics Linux

Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go 83

Posted by Zonk from the back-on-track dept.
Andy Updegrove writes "Massachusetts has appointed ITD COO Beth Pepoli as the acting CIO of the Commonwealth. At the same time, the Governor's Communications Director, Eric Fehrnstrom, has made the clearest statement yet that it is ODF that the new CIO will be implementing: 'There have been no changes in the commonwealth's published OpenDocument rules, and we are still on track for a January 2007 implementation.' We reported on the resignation of Peter Quinn in December.
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Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go More

Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go

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  • acronym hell (Score:4, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:18PM (#14411501) Homepage
    I didn't RTFA, but FWIW, ODF was nearly FUBAR.

  • This just in! (Score:2, Funny)

    by jacobcaz ( 91509 )
    This just in; the BRG is MK in the PRTW while the outgoing CTA is now fully assumed to be BFPLF.

    • Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP... shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT, 'cause if it leaks to the VC... he could end up an MIA, and then we'd all be put on KP.

  • Summary of What ODF is/means (Score:3, Insightful)

    by acaben ( 80896 ) * <bstanfield.gmail@com> on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:19PM (#14411510)
    Can someone provide a quick summary of what ODF means for MA, and a timeline of events that has led up to this story so far? I keep seeing it mentioned, and yet no one ever goes into detail about why it matters.

    • Re:Summary of What ODF is/means (Score:5, Informative)

      by diersing ( 679767 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:22PM (#14411540)
      Umm, a casual observer point of view is MS Office doesn't follow OpenDocument formatting so by saying the state will comply with ODF, they are giving MS the finger.
      • It has turned into a major political FUD-fest, but one of the more important details is IMHO that Microsoft *chose* not to support their customer (Massachusetts)'s wish to open and save files in OpenDocument format, and instead they questioned why their customer made such a silly decision and who did they think they were anyway. Read the articles on groklaw ( http://www.groklaw.net/ [groklaw.net]); most news you read about this will be biased one way or another, but groklaw always also has the bare facts. Disclaimer: I

      • Umm, a casual observer point of view is MS Office doesn't follow OpenDocument formatting so by saying the state will comply with ODF, they are giving MS the finger.

        An intelligent casual observer point of view is that a customer requested a better product, and their current supplier (instead of giving it to them) tried to get them fired. Imagine if McDonalds was supplying food for school lunches and the school asked for healthy food that met certain dietary requirements. You could well get a situation li

    • Re:Summary of What ODF is/means (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Among other things, ODF allows everyone, not just paying members of a private club, to exchange, edit and read documents. It also will open up the choice of vendors supplying software who can support this format. I think groklaw has a time-line there.

    • Re:Summary of What ODF is/means (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can find exhaustive coverage of the whole thing on Groklaw [groklaw.net], naturally.

    • Groklaw (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tony ( 765 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:31PM (#14411617) Journal
      Groklaw [groklaw.net] has the skinny, and a comprehensive history.

      What it means for the commonwealth of Massachusetts: sovereingity.

    • Re:Summary of What ODF is/means (Score:5, Informative)

      by Doug Coulter ( 754128 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:36PM (#14411655) Homepage
      Check out www.groklaw.net, which has been covering this and the M$ fud about it, as well as the SCO stuff. Basically, ODF is an open standard produced by a consortium of companies and released for public use with no patents, license fees or other encumberances. M$ could add support for it in a heartbeat (though it may not support all their bu...features) but is refusing to do so as that would place them in competition with the various other office suites that do support it -- and they might not win that one. After all, several of the suites that do support it are free as in free beer, as well as in free speech. M$ is responding that we should use their "open" (but not really) new xml format that they don't even support yet, and which has various legal problems for implementors. Peter Quinn, the CIO who used to have the job, quit because of an M$ funded witchhunt that got him a lot of bad publicity and negative attention. Of course, he was later found to be guiltless, but that little retraction only made it to page four, rather than page one where the accusations were made... See groklaw for more detail.

      • Peter Quinn, the CIO who used to have the job, quit because of an M$ funded witchhunt that got him a lot of bad publicity and negative attention

        This is the kind of stuff that is making the crowd at Groklaw less and less useful to me. It used to be just about the facts. Now, all the facts are still presented (which is why I still visit), but it is usually wrapped up with some opinion based retoric where Microsoft is to blame for every bad thing that happens out in the world.

        Where are the facts that t

    • it means office 12 won't support the list of present file type/ structures lik doc files, and MS is of course going to make you pay to upgrade and the state of Mass looked at open office(aka its alot cheaper and reads all the afore mentioned files), then flip'd MS the finger.
    • Here's my best stab at a commercial analogy for the ODF debacle.

      Imagine you're the procurement guy for a mid-sized company. Not huge, but not insigificant either. You use some product from an outside vendor, which everyone pretty much agrees sucks, but uses anyway. You recommend to your boss one day that the company try to negotiate with the vendor to make it suck less, and if they won't do this, dump the vendor for some alternative.

      So the vendor, which is a company bigger than yours, gets wind of your idea
  • Am I the only one who couldn't get to that "Reported on this before" link?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:24PM (#14411550)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Since when do states have CxOs? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Foofoobar ( 318279 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:30PM (#14411610)
      Actually, ODF is an attempt to maintain sovereignty and further separate state and corporation. By enforcinf the Open Document Format as the states choice, they guarantee that at any time in the future should older documents not work with current versions of software, that they as the state have the ability to modify existing open source code to ensure that older documents can either be converted to newer versions easily or will at least be accessible regardless of a corporations intelectual property, their development cycle, etc.

      It just maintains an oprganizations ability to access their own documents without waiting for a corporation to create some sort of backwards compatible solution on THEIR timeline rather than the states timeline.

      All in all a solid decision in theory. How it is implemented however can be an entirely different matter but conmsidering the intelligence and forethought that went into making this decision in the first place, it seems that implementation should be equally well thought out.
      • . . .be accessible regardless of a corporations intelectual property. . .

        And, perhaps, more to the point, it allows the citizens of the state the same.

        KFG
      • ODF doesn't equal open source, any program can support ODF be it open or closed source. It simply documents the interface. Chances are MS will offer a converter and a setting to use ODF as default to the MA government and keep the contract. I don't believe this will change anything.
      • By enforcinf [sic] the Open Document Format as the states choice, they guarantee that at any time in the future should older documents not work with current versions of software, that they as the state have the ability to modify existing open source code to ensure that older documents can either be converted to newer versions easily or will at least be accessible regardless of a corporations intelectual property, their development cycle, etc.

        Not to be reading too much into all this, but I read it thus:

        1. T
        • And it is good for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that there is no other major commercial word processor?
          • I seriously don't know about that. I mean, what do you consider MAJOR... the term is highly ambiguous. Open Office is major when you consider the functionallity it provides as well as the fact that it works (and can export) almost all Office documents. I can open WORD, EXCEL, Power Point, PDF, ODF and many others.

            The fact that it is not widely adopted has nopthing to do with it being MAJOR. I think the functionallity is far more important.
            • Let me just say that I don't think it's good for anyone that there's only one serious, well-known commercial word processor. However, I do think it's brave dictating a document format in the full knowledge that doing so will eliminate the most popular (and therefore least contentious) choice.

              The fact that it is not widely adopted has nopthing to do with it being MAJOR. I think the functionallity is far more important.

              Maybe public sector works differently in the US, but in the UK there's a strong chance tha
              • Will it eliminate Microsoft Word? What's to stop Microsoft from making its own Word/ODF plug-in? Also, are the differences between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Word so much greater than the differences between successive releases of Microsoft Word?
              • Well a staff revolt over software choice (as long as both are equally capable and similar in functionallity and GUI) is childish and a company has every right to make decisions that will affect employee performance and their bottom line. If I have 100 employees and am purchasing 100 licenses for the latest copy of Office every 3 years, thats a major expense.

                Aside from that, the GUI is extremely similar, I switched to using Open Office and everything is practically in the exact same place as with Office appl
    • Hopefully you are the only one here who's unnerved by two types of organizations having positions with the same title.
    • State? How about counties?

      The county I'm in (not in MA) has very recently (within the last 12 months) created a CIO position and filled it.

      I'm guessing the reason for this is because the county executive wanted someone in charge of the government's technology needs that could be removed or replaced at will (this is a caveat of an apointed position). The way the organization is currently set up, there's a separate Information Systems department and the head of IS is a civil servant and can't be removed or
      • The weird thing isn't that they have those positions. The weird thing is that they have those titles. Why is the ITD Director also called the CIO, when the Commissioner of Revenue isn't called the CFO, and the Governor isn't called the CEO? The only thing I can think of is that they're trying to attract applicants from the business IT world who would like a CIO title. But this still seems like an odd desire, since the organizations are likely to have different sorts of demands on technology.
    • I'm sure I can't be the only one here who finds the continual blurring of lines between "state"/"country" and "corporation" a bit unnerving.

      Perhaps, but perhaps you're also reading too much into the name. Would you feel better if the position was exactly the same, with the same person in it, but the title was Secretary of Technology? Or Minister of Administration? Or Almighty King And Ruler Of All That Is Digital And Government Owned?

      The blurring of lines between government and corporations is only problema
    • Here's how Real America (and most likely Real Earth) is structured:

      A Hierarchy of Control and Influence

      multinational corporations

      domestic corporations

      acolytes of Satan (a.k.a. professional lobbyists, and inherited political dynasties)

      national governments

      state governments

      local governments

      clueless masses

      Subservient organizations mimic their superiors in this

  • Oh My God! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eric Damron ( 553630 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @04:34PM (#14411641)
    "Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go"

    I need help! I understood that!!!

    • Yeah, but... (Score:3, Funny)

      by sczimme ( 603413 )

      I need help! I understood that!!!

      I think it could have used another 'Go':

      "Acting MA CIO Appointed, ODF A Go Go"

    • You think you've got troubles, brother - in fact, I didn't understand it, but pretended like I did sitting here at home alone in my office. "Great," says I, "what a windfall!"

      And then I had to read the article to figure it out. Who on EARTH am I trying to impress here? How square are you if you try to outnerd yourself in an otherwise empty room?

  • until i realized the author meant to say "AMACIOA,ODFAG"

    in which case i understood perfectly

  • Ob Good Morning Vietnam (Score:4, Funny)

    by jskiff ( 746548 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @05:02PM (#14411866) Homepage
    "Excuse me, sir. Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause if it leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P."
  • I don't think there will be a year of Open Source of a year of Open Document. I think there will be years marked by battles of Open source and open document formats. We've been fighting these bloody battles of Open source and Open Doc versus Closed source and Word Documents for years now, and every year I think the battles intensify as more and more casualties mount on both sides.

    2006 will be another year of fighting for F/OSS and ODF survival. So here's too a new year in the trenches.

  • A gloss on the story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Friday January 06, 2006 @05:10PM (#14411949) Homepage Journal

    OpenDocument is a published set of standards for office-type documents.

    This differs from the Microsoft Office formats in that they're fully documented, legally unencumbered, and reasonably easy to make use of (something the MS Office formats are, in spite of repeated claims of being "open", have never actually been in any substantive way.)

    This is important to the Commonwealth (= State) of Massachusetts as it recognizes it will need to be able to read it's digital files for decades, indeed centuries, into the future. MS Office and like applications have proven to be unable to read documents written by versions only a few years old.

    However it is hoped that by adopting a non-commercially-controlled standard files will be able to be read by applications yet undeveloped, from any vendor or source, without legal complexity.

    The other advantage is this also "levels the playing field" for all other applications by breaking the MS Office Format lock, and will thus enable government entities and those they interact with with stop paying the "Microsoft Tax".

    Microsoft has complained that this format excludes their products. It doesn't, they can develop a converter the same they have for all of the other competing formats their products read & (sometimes) write to.

    Microsoft has also taken steps to get their formats also set as a standard. Whether whatever ECMA eventually publishes is actually useful is an open question but has been clearly driven by this situation.

    Microsoft has also employed their PR & lobbying arms, having front organizations distribute disinformation about OpenDocument, it's effects, goals, etc.

    The most visible supporter of Massachusetts adopting OpenDocument was a civil servant, Peter Quinn.

    He was recently investigated for possible misuse of funds. This story received unusually prominent coverage by the leading local newspaper, on their front page.

    The without-cause finding received little coverage but the employee decided he wasn't interested working under this level of personal attack and has left civil service.

    The State Governor is about to run for US President and has a history of w ^H h ^H o ^H r ^H i ^H n ^H g accepting campaign contributions from interested parties, then making dubious appointments and policies.

    It was widely suspected the Governor would be announce a convenient policy change after Peter Quinn left (costs to run for President!)

    This story is that the policy won't change. Or at least, that is the story today. How aggresively the policy is implemented is another question, or if this policy will even stand once general attention to it has waned.

    The other good news is that many other levels and jurisdictions of governements have identical concerns about using MS's formats and are themselves considering alternatives, open formats, etc.

    • Anonymous Cowards filtered. If their words aren't worth so much as a nom de plume why should I value them any mor

      If you ignore good information just because it comes from an anonymous source then you are only sabotaging yourself. There is no other outcome to the situation than you having a smaller pool of information to look at, so your view is narrower than that of others. You may think you are avoiding a lot of garbage but I guess you will never know if you completely block it out. You even need to un

  • I Was Getting A Little Worried (Score:3, Insightful)

    by canfirman ( 697952 ) <pdavi25&yahoo,ca> on Friday January 06, 2006 @05:11PM (#14411952)
    'There have been no changes in the commonwealth's published OpenDocument rules, and we are still on track for a January 2007 implementation.'

    Well, that's good to hear. I was starting to wonder if the new interm CIO would be a friend of Redmond and would start to turn MA against ODF. Good for them to stick to their principles.

  • Correct me if I am weong, but ODF is only used by OOo and Suns Staroffice (which is the same thing, in a box, with phone support), so even though the format is open, which is undoubtably good, isnt it just locking into Sun because no one else reads / writes ODF?

    • Re:How "standard" is ODF? (Score:4, Informative)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Friday January 06, 2006 @06:04PM (#14412436)

      Correct me if I am weong[sic], but ODF is only used by OOo and Suns Staroffice (which is the same thing, in a box, with phone support), so even though the format is open, which is undoubtably good, isnt it just locking into Sun because no one else reads / writes ODF?

      OK, you're wrong. ODF is an open format, thus no lock-in. Anyone can and will implement it. Koffice and WordPerfect have both announced that upcoming versions of their products will support it. OpenOffice is open source, so any company can modify and sell support for it. Even MS can support the format easily, they just don't want to because the benefits it brings, like the ability to migrate easily to other formats, might not allow them to gouge customers as easily. The lock-in part of the .doc format is that no one except MS can read/write it perfectly (and not even MS between versions).

      Moving to ODF is smart because it is not a lock-in. In five years when MA wants to evaluate new word processors, they can look at the features and prices of at least four different providers and choose the best fit, without worrying if they can read old files and without worrying about migration costs.

      • I have little doubt in my mind that AbiWord and Apple will soon support OpenDocument as well.
        • Apple released the spec for their Pages and Keynote document format. It's somewhere on their developer site (I downloaded it for interest's sake the other day).

          It's just a gzipped XML format - very simple to process.

          It would be a simple (but not trivial) task to write a converter to ODF, and any reasonable programmer could do it in a day or two. I'm tempted to write one in RealBASIC just for fun.

          Well... not a *lot* of fun, but fun nevertheless...

    • No read this [wikipedia.org].

    • Correct me if I am weong, but ODF is only used by OOo and Suns Staroffice (which is the same thing, in a box, with phone support), so even though the format is open, which is undoubtably good, isnt it just locking into Sun because no one else reads / writes ODF?

      Ok, you're wrong.

      For starters

    • Heh, no because you can build your own ODF reader. And MSOffice will eventually support the format, so its really a moot point. Come to think of it, I wouldn't put it past MS to add ODF support via update to Office XP and Office 2003 and pretend like they invented ODF. ;-)
  • Is it just me, or have the editors failed to link to their own article properly! C'mon guys, getting a 404 for your own site is not cool.
  • Eric Fehrnstrom ? Is anyone else thinking he sounds like the Professor's Arch-nemesis from Futurama...
  • Anything that the government makes use of should be open-source. The only exception I can think of is where it would be a national security risk in doing so, which isn't likely the case here. As long as I pay my taxes, I should have the right to view gov't-created documents without needing to buy software in order to do so. Not to mention I shouldn't be paying my tax dollars to Microsoft; they've gotten enough of my money in the past as it is.

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