Attention Massachusetts Residents: Your State Senate is Selling You Out

The Massachusetts state I/T department decided recently to standardize all documents on something called Open Document Format or ODF, replacing a defacto standard of various Microsoft product formats. Microsoft has, understandably, been upset about this and has pulled out all the stops to stop this from going forward. Totally coincidentally (right), a State Senator added a line to a recent appropriations bill which would effectively kill ODF and possibly standardize solely on Microsoft formats: Bill drops bomb on OpenDocument Format in Massachusetts: Two days after a Senate oversight committee in Massachusetts (1) questioned the authority of the state's IT department (ITD) to standardize on formats for storing public documents and (2) demanded that state officials take more time to study the potential impact of setting the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a standard, an economic stimulus bill that goes before the Massachusetts Senate tomorrow (Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005) has been suddenly amended with text that, if passed, would essentially subjugate all IT procurements and ITD decisions including standard setting to a special task force.

Why should this concern you?

• Standardizing on a proprietary data format locks you into the proprietary software that reads that format. While there are many software packages which attempt to read the various MS formats (*.doc, *.xls, etc), they are dependent on reverse engineering the format, MSFT can pull the rug out at any time by updating their software and changing the underlying format.
• Standardizing on a proprietary format locks you into the proprietary software that reads that format (yes, this is a repeat, but read on): you have to use the software as issued by the company to read your own data. If the company changes the format, you have to upgrade all of your licenses (to keep data formats in sync). If the company goes out of business you are screwed. I was advising a colleague of a friend of mine over the summer who was using a proprietary package to manage his restaurant. All of his menus, recipes, accounts were managed by this product. The product had a built-in die-by date and promptly stopped working at the end of June, 2005 (years after he'd acquired the product). He tried to reach the company to get an updated version and surprise, the company is out of business. There was no follow-on company. There was no warning that he was about to lose everything he needed to run his business, it just stopped working. This was with a legitimate installation of a proprietary package, license paid up, etc. He had no legal, legitimate recourse to recover the data. Had the data been in an open, documented format he could at least try repurposing it in another application. Proprietary document formats tie you to proprietary software and to the whims and fortunes of the software provider.
• Proprietary software is expensive, even with various bulk licensing regimes. Governments are always under the gun to cut costs and lower taxes, so it is surprising to read of a legislator in favour of higher costs and taxes when there is no real need.
• Open document formats do not necessarily imply open software, free software, non-proprietary software. There is no reason Microsoft products could not be used with ODF documents except for obstinance and instransigence on MSFT's part (ODF is allegedly XML, MSFT products allegedly can read, parse, and save in XML formats).

So, if you live in Massachusetts, contact your state legislators and express your concern about this shift and ask why they are willing to increase the costs of information technology for the state by sticking to proprietary data formats.