Civic Engagement

The laws and records of a free and democratic society MUST not be locked behind the shroud of privately controlled document formats. We must use open, standard, interoperable, accessible formats that are future-proof like plain text and the OASIS OpenDocument Format.

In order for documents to be public, everyone should be able to read them. ODF is designed for exactly this situation, creating documents that anyone can read.

I don't wish to be alienated for using free software.

OpenDocument Format (ODF) is simpler than Office OpenXML (OOXML), it is supported by multiple free and proprietary programs, it contains no undocumented tags (OOXML has several), it is an ISO standard (ISO rejected fast-track approval of OOXML), it was created by a broad OASIS working group instead of a single corporation, and it remains open to continuous improvement by members of OASIS -- including Microsoft!

Furthermore, Microsoft just failed to win fast-track ISO approval for OOXML as a standard. Massachusetts should reject OOXML for the same reasons as an unprecedented number of national standards bodies rejected it!

Microsoft offers a so-called Open format, but it's clearly the attempt to stay in control of the market and bind customers and governments to Microsoft. The format is actually not open, especially because of the license it comes with. Long story short, other vendors of Office Packages are not allowed to incorporate Microsofts Open Format. The ODF in contrary does not have any restrictions and garuantees what we love and support: FREEDOM.

OpenDocument is very important to every citizen in Massachusetts, and the U.S.

For example, I am an IT volunteer at a non-profit educational organization in Western Mass. Adoption of the OpenDocument format would mean greater choice for me, and all the teachers, as to what software to use.Going into the technical problems of Microsoft's answer to OpenDocument (OOXML) would be too lengthy to discuss here, but a simple google search will bring a wealth on information on the matter.

It's an even more important economic issue. By supporting OpenDocument, Massachusetts would guarantee that those who choose to use free (and even gratis) software are able to transparently share documents with the U.S. Government (and eventually, with each other). Microsoft's "promise" to not sue is not enough to guarantee any sort of freedom with their standard.

It is important to look beyond the office suite as the canonical software to read and write these formats. Although an open format might provide greater vendor choice for office suites in the future, that is the smallest potential benefit from making such a choice --- MS Office works very well for what it does, and users are happy.

More important are the possibilities opened up for document processing by software systems OTHER than the office suite. This will become increasingly important as we seek to index, process, manage and otherwise automatically deal with terabytes of state archives. An amazing ecosystem of HTML production and processing software and software components --- both open source and proprietary --- has sprung up around the open HTML format. Custom programs to process HTML documents in custom ways can be quickly and cheaply developed, built upon a variety of common, open source HTML processing libraries. We can expect the same to develop around ODF, with ...

This issue sounds obscure, but is important to every citizen of the Commonwealth. The wealth of information used, produced, and archived by the state must be Open, Transparent, and Accessible to all its citizens, now and in the future. Beware of "Standards" that are dependent on private or secret software structures, and take note that this word, along with the word "Open", can be misused the same way the words "Democratic" and "Republic" have been historically abused by "People's Democratic Republics".

Open Documentation Standard would be a big step forward for the use of computers in government. However, allowing the badly named "Office Open XML File Formats" would be a big step backward.

Massachusetts' citizens need one standard that's guaranteed to be 100% transparent in order to guarantee unfettered access to government resources. Together, open standards and free software provide this guarantee.

Using open standards for document creation is absolutely imperative for accessibility. Make Massachusetts Open Source!

Unfortunately, this important issue is receiving very little attention due to its technical nature. However, in order to ensure equal access of government documents to all citizens, it is imperative that the Massachusetts government adopt the OpenDocument standard. The Massachusetts website is littered with documents under Microsoft's proprietary “.doc” and “.xls” file formats. For instance, try searching “site:mass.gov filetype:doc” or “site:mass.gov filetype:xls” in Google (without quotes). You will obtain thousands of results. In order to view these files, one must purchase Microsoft Word and Excel, products that cost hundreds of dollars. Thus, some illegally pirate the software in order to view and edit these documents. Microsoft's file formats are tailored for Microsoft products, preventing complete compatibility in competitor's products. In other productivity suites, the files may appear distorted or may not open at all. The OpenDocument standard allows ...

Government records should not be constrained by private licensing/terms of use issues

I agree. This may sound like a technical or unimportant issue at first glance, but it really is critical that citizens have access to government records. It's important on several levels: First, we citizens ARE the government, and we have a right to this data for whatever purposes we see fit. Second, it's important for historical purposes. You never know what data records will beocme important 20, 50, maybe 100 years from now. Third, it will help us keep government and our public officials more honest--The more access we have to info, the better to understand exactly what's going on behind those closed doors!