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Microsoft Government IT Politics

Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States 264

Posted by kdawson from the best-paid-suits dept.
ajanp writes "Computerworld discusses the defeat of pro-ODF legislation in the states of California, Florida, Texas, Oregon, and Connecticut which 'would have required state agencies to use freely available and interoperable file formats, such as the Open Document Format for Office Applications, instead of Microsoft Corp.'s proprietary Office formats.' A similar bill in Minnesota was changed to study the issue instead. There was heavy lobbying being done in private on both sides with one problem being 'the jargon-laden disinformation that committee members felt they were being fed by lobbyists for both IBM and Microsoft. Although lobbyists would tell the committee one thing in private, they got cold feet when asked to verify the information publicly, under oath.' However, 'Despite the string of defeats, Marino Marcich, executive director of the Washington-based ODF Alliance, said the legislative fight has only begun.'"
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Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States More

Pro-ODF Legislation Loses In Six States

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  • deep pockets (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bl8n8r ( 649187 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:20PM (#19375709)
    will determine the outcome. It's the American way.
  • OK, I'm from Europe and don't know too much about the different states of America.

    But when I read the summation of state names that rejected ODF it rang a bell.

    Are these some of the most republican states?

    • Re:I'm not from America (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:25PM (#19375747) Homepage Journal
      Connecticut and Oregon lean democrat. The post before yours is more accurate. Both parties will sell out for money. It's not a dem/rep issue - it is a problem with the core of our political system.

      • Keep up the pressure. Eventually, it'll work (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mollog ( 841386 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:37PM (#19375839)
        I've learned by watching the big money interests; you only have to win once. And once you've won, there's no going back. I saw it happen with logging and other environmental interests; the logging lobby wants to log some area, they just keep trying to get the legislature to allow logging, and one fine day, they do. In, out, and the battle is over.

        ODF needs to do this, too. Keep it up and one year real soon, they'll win and it's over.

    • Re:I'm not from America (Score:4, Informative)

      by lubricated ( 49106 ) <michalp&gmail,com> on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:25PM (#19375751)
      umm California and Connecticut are very demoratic
      oregon is a little democratic
      florida is a little republican
      texas is very republican
      Minnesota is a swing state.
      • Given that California has a Republican governor, I think it's pretty middle of the road politically. Californians are perhaps socially a bit more liberal than other states, but fiscally more conservative (or at least would like to be).

        • Given that California has a Republican governor, I think it's pretty middle of the road politically.

          Ha. Funny. The Californian State Assembly is majority democrat. If you live in this state you would think it is anything but Republican/conservative by some of the crap that they try to pass up in Sacramento.
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Asse mbly#State_Assembly_Members.2C_2007-2008_Session [wikipedia.org]

        • Well. One might quip that California is so Democrat, that even the Republicans sometimes think they're Democrats. For a Republican, the Governator is socially fairly liberal. Not a "real" Republican at all, really. More of a modern Republocrat.

          C//
      • "Minnesota is a swing state." The heck it is. This state has never collectively voted for a Republican in the presidential races. Our state Republican party is really just a bunch of liberal Democrats that aren't as liberal as the Democrat party. Our Republican Governor did veto all the tax increases, but signed a statewide smoking ban and is the largest supporter of ethanol subsidies. If you want your politicians to understand technology then maybe some of us geeks should run for office. After all o

        • Our Republican Governor did veto all the tax increases
          As I understand it, it wasn't just because they were tax increases.
      • It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.

        Incorrect. That study showed that helmets increased the risk of collision.

        Once you're in a collision however, you're fucked if you don't have a helmet.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Miseph ( 979059 )
          Not sure about the study in question... but often such studies do not count dead people, just survivors. In such cases, we would find that helmets are linked quite strongly to head injuries, since all the non-helmet wearers are either dead or fortunate enough not to have suffered any particular head trauma at all.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Propagandhi ( 570791 )
      California - Not even close.
      Florida - Not sure about the state legislature, but this is a swing state.
      Texas - Heavily Republican.
      Oregon - Blue state, although no California...
      Connecticut - Blue again.
      Minnesota - Last I lived there house was red, senate blue.. pretty much a toss up at the state level.

      Technology issues aren't a Democrat V. Republican thing in the states, both sides are equally ignorant and more than willing to listen to the money. They just kind of assume that MS or whomever is talking to th

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CarpetShark ( 865376 )
      This isn't a democrat vs. republican thing. It's a corrupt vs. other thing.

  • Don't Worry (Score:3, Funny)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:21PM (#19375719) Homepage Journal
    If McCain wins and puts Ballmer in his cabinet, I'm sure all this will get straightened out.

  • Write to your reps (Score:4, Insightful)

    by daeg ( 828071 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:24PM (#19375741)
    Write to your reps. Most of them are completely clueless and have been fed unhealthy amounts of FUD that programs like Microsoft Office couldn't be used. They can, in fact, be used, and if an entire state government were to commit to using them in such a manner, Microsoft would be forced to provide improved support or lose them entirely to OpenOffice or alternatives.

    • Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Informative)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:37PM (#19375833)
      If you bothered to RTFA you would have noticed that the Reps admit to being technically clueless and correctly point out that they should not be choosing technical formats. Secondly both sides were outputting unhealthy amounts of FUD with IBM FUD in particular identified as being very negative after IBM were apparently deliberately disingenuous about the situation with ODF in Massachusetts. Then there will always be the cost issue with matters like this which decision makers will generally tend to shun away from because they want to spend the budget on programs more likely to get them elected next time round.

      • Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Insightful)

        by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:53PM (#19375969)
        You're right, they shouldn't be choosing technical formats. But what they should be doing is setting down laws which determine what non-technical characteristics the formats should have. They should be open for anybody to use. There should be no licensing costs associated with implementing the document readers, and the specs should be freely (as in beer) obtainable. Other likely formats would be Adobe Acrobat, at least for read only files. I'd actually prefer this for stuff that you're not supposed to need to edit, as it ensures that the document doesn't have weird formatting or problems translating between different versions of the program. I'm not saying it should be ODF that governments release their documents in, but it should be something that's open to all citizens, not just users of MS Windows who like to spend $200 on an OS and $300 on a word processor.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Timesprout ( 579035 )

          I'm not saying it should be ODF that governments release their documents in, but it should be something that's open to all citizens, not just users of MS Windows who like to spend $200 on an OS and $300 on a word processor.

          Is this not already the case or have the OpenOffice.org people been lying about its capabilities. As you mention Adobe is already well entrenched for read only documents. MS also provide free viewers for most of their formats so access to these documents is available and there is curren

          • Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Insightful)

            by CastrTroy ( 595695 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @09:07PM (#19376455)
            The problem is that the viewers for MS word documents don't work on operating systems like Linux. Also, it's up to MS as to whether or not they want to continue supporting the viewers. If MS decides to drop support for certain viewers, then people are not free to view the documents. There's many reasons to switch away from office formats. Having all your documents unreadable except by programs released by a single commercial entity is not good, because they can charge you whatever they want to read them. Proof of this is that they charge $300 for a word processor. Something that hasn't needed new features for most people for the last 10 years.

            • A lot of versions of Office has been Microsoft tacking on a new version number to try to get everyone to re-buy Office again - look at the differences between Word 2000 and 2003, for example.

              But, when Microsoft has had a real competitor, things have improved. Look at the difference between the original DOS Word and early Windows versions and Word 6 due to WordStar and WordPerfect, and look at the nifty new version Microsoft made (2007) due to OpenOffice. Same thing goes with Internet Explorer - until Fi

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by slashqwerty ( 1099091 )
            MS also provide free viewers for most of their formats so access to these documents is available

            Virtually every historic event is going to involve government documents. It does not matter that Microsoft provides a reader in the present day that works in a very limited scope. One of the key points of requiring an open format is to ensure the documents can be read by historians hundreds of years from now. Such a guarantee can not be made without a clear published standard.

        • Re:Write to your reps (Score:4, Interesting)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @09:34PM (#19376689) Homepage
          So what you are saying is that ODF shouldn't be contested in the political arena it should be contested in the courts as a class action law suit as it is clearly and a fundamentally uncompetitive practice by any government to use a proprietary data format that inherently stifles competition and directly excludes every other company that does not hold rights to that proprietary document format from competing for and accessing government works and contracts.

          If anything the losses in state legislature open the door for class action law suits and forces every corporation involved to put forward their views in public and under oath. So while it might be a struggle in politics it should be far easier in the courts.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Kjella ( 173770 )
            it should be contested in the courts as a class action law suit as it is clearly and a fundamentally uncompetitive practice by any government to use a proprietary data format

            Um I'm sorry, but what do you think 90%+ of government applications are? They're proprietary applications that store information in their proprietary format, be it document maangement, e-mail, office, hr, payroll, accounting and all sorts of department-specific tools. If they were to change systems, they'd probably have to migrate to a

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rtb61 ( 674572 )
              The law is strictly a literary legal definition, any proprietary format that excludes other 'COMPANIES' from equal access by definition is anti-competitive, it is illegal for most governments to promote anti-competitive practices and to favour one company illegally over another.

              All that is required is an open alternative, good, bad or indifferent, it's that cut and dried. It is not a political discussion, proprietary document formats are proprietary.

              Whilst lobbyist and their ilk can argue all sorts of n

            • It's not about what format they use internally. It's about what format they use when they release them.

              • Re:Write to your reps (Score:5, Insightful)

                by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) * on Monday June 04, 2007 @03:06AM (#19378685)

                Ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act? Governmental transparency is a prerequisite of freedom, and in a transparent government all documents, including "internal" ones, are potentially released. Therefore, all documents, including "internal" ones, need to be in open formats.

                When you get right down to it, proprietary formats are un-American.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by epee1221 ( 873140 )
            I interpreted it saying that the legislature writes the requirements, and the executive does the implementation. Courts are for testing.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jimicus ( 737525 )
          Unfortunately, all of those descriptions could be applied to Microsoft's XML format (if not right now, it wouldn't be hard for Microsoft to change that).

          Despite this, the specifications for this format are next to useless [slashdot.org] so in the real world, you'll probably end up with Office (which will implement it just fine) and everything else (which will sort-of work, sort-of not work, and basically just be a pain in the backside).

      • the Reps admit to being technically clueless and correctly point out that they should not be choosing technical formats.

        It's not a technical question. The issue is getting away from a single vendor lock in that limits choice. I'm a GNU/Linux user and I can't do anything with M$'s new "open" format. Mac users are in the same boat. The new format is not "open" and legislators should be able to see the issue for what it is. If they want their documents to be readable, they need to dump the bad apple,

    • I don't think most people can afford to write the kind of checks that would be necessary. ;(

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ajanp ( 1083247 )
      Massachusetts is currently the only state that has a policy requiring the use of open formats. Ofcourse, just one state supporting open formats really doesn't mean that Microsoft needs to spend more money on changing their existing policies, it means they need to spend more money on lobbying.

      Microsoft lobbied heavily against the policy in the state legislature, and advocates for people with disabilities complained that ODF-compliant applications don't work with screen readers and other tools used by the blind as well as Office does. Last year, Massachusetts officials said the state planned to adopt plug-in software that would let its Office users create and save files in ODF, enabling agencies to continue using the Microsoft applications.

  • Not practical (Score:3, Insightful)

    by grapeape ( 137008 ) <mpope7.kc@rr@com> on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:24PM (#19375743) Homepage
    All they have to do is explain that getting Office to output ot odf is not part of office but requires a downloaded addon, follow that with a breakdown of the man-hours required to get it installed on everyones machines, then top it off with a mention that there is no real way to regulate attachments coming from outside and this is DOA in any local govt. It's a nice idea but its just not practical.
    • there is no real way to regulate attachments coming from outside


      Just like cocaine... hmm, I see, perhaps you are right. But, wait, when a cause is worthwhile shouldn't we at least try before giving it up as "not practical"?

      • I'm just looking at this as a person who would have to support it. I have two people handling over 100 people spread out over 4 offices. On any given day im having to convert some oddball format (usually an ancient version of Word Perfect) to something readable by the client. Its already bad enough with some idiot the clients trying to communicate sending time sensitive documentation in docx format assuming everyone jumped at the opportunity to grab Office 2007. Could you imagine the hassle of trying ex
    • Yes, Microsoft's add-on is utter crap, but a few other people make them, too.

      Also, you have to look at this another way:
      * Are all our old-format Microsoft documents going to be accessible in 10 years? I mean, who has a copy of Word 1.0 these days? And no, the legacy support in current versions is NOT good enough.

      * Aren't we going to go through the same damn trouble in the next new, incompatible version of Word?

      Between those two factors, you may be saving some pain in the short term, but you're hurting y

    • All they have to do is explain that getting Office to output OOXML is not part of office but requires a downloaded addon, follow that with a breakdown of the man-hours required to get it installed on everyones machines, then top it off with a mention that there is no real way to regulate attachments coming from outside and this is DOA in any local govt. Then explain to them that the addon is painful to use and they really need to throw away all of their computers so that they can run Office 2007, which wor

    • Re:Not practical (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @09:35PM (#19376695) Homepage
      All they have to do is explain that getting Office to output ot odf is not part of office but requires a downloaded addon, follow that with a breakdown of the man-hours required to get it installed on everyones machines,

      Your client management suite should be able to do this in about an hour, including testing time. What, you don't push your software? Compared to the cost of 100 seat licenses for Office, a software push / update is trivial.

      then top it off with a mention that there is no real way to regulate attachments coming from outside and this is DOA in any local govt.

      You don't need to. You can keep going with Word for the time being for recieving attachments, but the agencies would be required to internally communicate and send out communications in a format that anyone could read.

      The idea is not to kill microsoft. The idea is to push government agencies and the software suppliers that support them to use and create document formats that we have a hope of reading in 10 or 20 years (let alone 200). Can you imagine if the US constitution was written in Symantec Greatworks? Or if key data from 50 years in the past was written in GobeProductive on BeOS? If Microsoft adopts a truly open format that satisfies this need for transparency and readability, then that's great! But if not, we shouldn't be tying ourselves to them to fill a need they don't want to fill.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jimicus ( 737525 )
        Your client management suite should be able to do this in about an hour, including testing time. What, you don't push your software? Compared to the cost of 100 seat licenses for Office, a software push / update is trivial.

        At the risk of being modded a troll, every time a proposal which includes "install this software on all your PCs" is made, someone pipes up with an answer along the lines of "But that would take forever!". The worst bit is they often get modded up as insightful.

        Considering this is a site
    • While it may be inconvenient or impractical, I think it is is insane (and I think should be illegal) to have public data locked up in proprietary formats. We ran into this issue not long ago with some old Quicken backups at my workplace. I wasted quite a few man-hours trying to find a way to retrieve our data without buying a brand new version of Quicken. So I guess impractical is in the eye of the beholder.

    • It's a nice idea but its just not practical.

      And storing your documents in binary formats that you can only open with software from one vendor reliably is practical? It's not even a nice idea - it may be common practice, but it's insane if you want to store the documents for any length of time.

      A switch would cost money initially but would save a huge amount more when you count the costs of archiving (long term), retreival and upgrades for editing software, not to mention the cost to the people the local gov

  • Stupid Politicians... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tuoqui ( 1091447 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:37PM (#19375841) Journal
    I think we should make a law that politicians are not allowed to legislate about anything that they have not taken courses on (and passed). This goes especially true for technology but could be applied to other things like medicine, economy, etc..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Runefox ( 905204 )
      You know, that's actually a very good idea, and I'd support it 100%. Unfortunately, it'll never happen, for the sole reason that if it took a few years longer to get to politics that's a few years' worth of illegitimate income they won't be taking in.

      Though I hate to generalize; I don't mean to say there aren't any honest polit-Oh, wait.
    • I think we should make a law that politicians are not allowed to legislate about anything that they have not taken courses on (and passed). This goes especially true for technology but could be applied to other things like medicine, economy, etc.

      I assume then that you would agree that the geek should not be permitted to make decisions for others outside his own narrow area of technical competence...

  • Developed or updated by more than one independent software provider in a well-defined, inclusive process

    (Taken from the intro to the Oregon legislation, not sure if the other states are similar or not.)

    Why does it matter if it was developed or updated by more than one independent software provider? As long as it is well-defined and inclusive, and follows the other tenets (not encumbered by royalties, for example,) then does it really matter that it's developed by one sole provider? PDF is developed solel

    • "Why does it matter if it was developed or updated by more than one independent software provider?"

      Yes, I really think so.

      "As long as it is well-defined"

      That's the point. Experience shows that you cannot seriously hope for such an entangled thingie as a document format (or network protocol) to be defined beyond shadows on a written standard. The only way to know you have a functional open standard is to have a look at the source code itself. I'd prefer taking away the "multiple providers" and to say inst

  • Where have we heard this one before? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @07:50PM (#19375941)
    First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then they crack open a can of lobbyist whoopass and defeat your bill.

    All kidding aside, what makes this fight different from the usual standards wars is that it's not between two companies trying to pitch different standards like Beta and VHS or BlueRay and HDDVD. In that kind of fight, whoever wins, the victor is still going to be a giant corporation. For the buying public it's truly a case of same shit, different pile. ODF isn't just a product being shilled by a single corporation and so there's no single company to bankrupt or buy out so victory can be declared. I think this is going to be more like guerrilla warfare than a conventional battle.

    I predict that there will be many, many more defeats for ODF legislation, especially in the US. The question is whether there will be a victory or failure after all those defeats. Microsoft certainly has the dollars in this fight. There's the old quote from Vietnam, allegedly from when both sides were having a talk after the final peace was declared. A Col. Summers had a chat with General Giap. "You know you never defeated us in the field," Summers said. "That may be true, but it is also irrelevant," Giap replied.

    No matter which way it goes, this war is going to be interesting to watch.

  • In the case of Texas... (Score:5, Informative)

    by UncleTogie ( 1004853 ) * on Sunday June 03, 2007 @08:51PM (#19376339) Homepage Journal

    Looking at the links for Texas, it appears that the two bills in question, SB 446 [state.tx.us] and HB 1794 [state.tx.us] are not "defeated", but instead just pending in committee. I'm not naïve enough to believe they couldn't be left there, but they've *not* been voted down explicitly yet...

    Write/email your local representative!

    • Re:In the case of Texas... (Score:4, Informative)

      by ajanp ( 1083247 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @09:41PM (#19376739)
      Those are actually both identical bills. HB1794 is the House version of the Bill sponsored by state Representative Mark Veasey and SB446 is the Senate version of the Bill sponsored by Rep. Hinojosa. Based on what's mentioned in the article and notes from the hearing [state.tx.us], it does appear to be dead (until at least 2009 when the issue can be brought up again).

      Mathers is chief clerk for the Committee on Government Reform in the Texas House of Representatives and is in charge of researching bills for the committee, which considered and eventually quashed HB1794.


      "The committee," he said, "wanted a flat-out answer from the DIR. 'Was [moving to open document formats] something we should be doing right now? And did they need the backing of the committee to do it?' The answer in both cases was, 'No.'"

      The article goes on to mention a number of additional factors including the animosity and FUD coming from both Microsoft and IBM lobbyists that undermined the credibility of each side as well as the unwillingness of either side to testify publicly. It's also mentioned that Representative "Veasey blames other factors; for example, he claimed that the reform committee has a historical bias against government mandates. He also cited Microsoft's tactics. According to Veasey, the software vendor cooperated with him on initial drafts of the bill but then refused to sign off at the last moment. He said said Microsoft also hired a top local lobbying firm that went to the expense of bringing in witnesses from other states and countries."


      That's not to say you shouldn't write your local Texas Rep if you support either Microsoft's or IBM's position, but for now, the bill has been "quashed".

  • Seeing things like this (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Magila ( 138485 ) on Sunday June 03, 2007 @09:15PM (#19376521) Homepage
    I am increasingly convinced that this country would be much better off today if our founding fathers had extended the principal of separation of church and state to also apply to private enterprise.

    Though one could also argue there is no fundamental difference between the two. If nothing else Scientology has certainly blurred the line a bit.
  • From TFA

    would-be laws were all killed off within the last month while being debated in legislative committees, following fierce opposition from Microsoft Corp. lobbyists

  • After all, we have the best legislators in the US that money can buy.

  • Liars (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )
    This one sums up well what the problem with lobbyists is:

    Although lobbyists would tell the committee one thing in private, they got cold feet when asked to verify the information publicly, under oath.
    They're all liars. Even the good ones who are lobbying for "your" side. Good to see that at least some politicians are smart enough to challenge them this way.

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