Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Microsoft Owns Massachusetts

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Remember how Massachusetts wanted to adopt an open document standard?  No matter how much pressure Microsoft was applying we were stick to our guns.

Well scratch that.  Massachusetts just added Microsoft’s Office Open XML to the list of acceptable open source formats.  The Information Technology Division just snuck in the draft proposal yesterday in the middle of a holiday week hoping no one would notice.  But as you can imagine they would want to have an open and complete comment period on the draft right?  Well wrong, the comment period ends July 20th.

A review draft of ETRM v. 4.0 is available for review and comment from July 2nd through July 20th, 2007. Comments should be submitted to standards@state.ma.us. This major release of the ETRM updates content published in version 3.6, introduces the new Management Domain, enhances the ETRM’s format for accessibility and usability as well as provides additions and updates to existing language and technical specifications. For a detailed outline of major revisions made in this version please consult the Major Revisions for ETRM v.4.0 document.

Andy Updegrove blog has more.

two years ago Microsoft’s formats were closed, and now they have been adopted by Ecma, and perhaps may soon be adopted by ISO/IEC as well.  Bringing Microsoft to this point is, from that perspective, a victory indeed..

But this would likely be a Pryrrhic victory at best.  Office still commands a huge lead in the marketplace, and its ability to outspend the new entrants (many open source) into the office productivity suite marketplace will be enormous.  If no one is buying ODF-compliant products, no one will develop them.  And if no one is developing them, no one will be competing with Microsoft.  And if no one is competing with Microsoft, then no one will care whether Microsoft contributes new features to Ecma or maintains them as proprietary extensions of Ecma 376, or whether it fully implements Ecma 376, or whether, in fact, it continues to support Ecma 376 at all.  And then we will be right back where we started

They forced out Peter Quinn and Louis Gutierrez, don’t let Microsoft get their way.  They are asking for comments so let’s give them some.

 

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Comments

  1. on his transition team: Brian Burke. A Clinton appointee, whom Patrick apparently knew.

    That person is Brian Burke, the Microsoft Regional Director for Public Affairs, and if that surprises you, it surprises me as well, given the degree of acrimonious debate and disinformation witnessed in Massachusetts over the last 15 months involving the Information Technology Division’s transition to ODF.

    What does that bode for the future of ODF in Massachusetts?  On the one hand, it turns out that both Deval Patrick and Brian Burke were part of the Clinton administration, and their acquaintance presumably stems from that time period rather from than a recent introduction.  On the other hand, it is my understanding that it was Burke who led the lobbying effort on Beacon Hill against ODF, and also urged legislators to introduce the amendment intended to take away much of the ITD’s planning power generally, and as regards standards specifically, and hand it to a task force made up of political appointees.

    http://consortiuminf…

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    I did a long post on the ODF thing back in December: http://granby01033.b…

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    Here’s another thing concerning ODF, Microsoft, and Massachusetts: http://www.computerw…

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    Mark

    • You are right, Microsoft shill Brian Burke who has a hand in getting rid of Gutierrez was on Patrick’s transition team. I guess the writing was on the wall.

      • Gutierrez was on the transition team too — same working group.  Those must’ve been some interesting discussions.

  2. From the MA perspective, the strongest arguments for open standards are independent of any particular software company.

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    The data belongs to the people of Massachusetts, and they should not rely on the economic success of arbitrary whim of any company to ensure that they retain access to their own data.

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    If the Microsoft standard OOXML is open [published in its entirety] and a standard, than they will retain that access with OOXML.  That’s a tremendous improvement over where we’re at right now, where many documents — including oodles of them published on the Commonwealth’s web site — are .xls or .doc or .ppt format, requiring Excel, Word, or Powerpoint.

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    So, if the requirement passes and it includes OOXML, we will indeed have made tremendous IT progress within the Commonwealth.

    • Microsoft’s ooXML is really an attack on the true ODF.  If Microsoft really wanted to embrace the open document it would have moved to the existing and widely accepted ODF standard.  This is the true standard and why Massachusetts started this in the first place.  ODF was to ensure that anyone could access files without the need to license expensive software, it’s an open standard that all software could be used.

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      Microsoft on the other hand is afraid to lose market share, so if they use the ODF standard then no one would actually have the need to buy MS Office.  If OpenOffice or other software vendors can be used cheaper or free then why buy MS Office, so instead they attacked.  ooXML is not open by any means and Microsoft still uses their own proprietary formatting instead of ISO-standards.  Microsoft wants to own the standard.

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      Massachusetts was an important battleground as it was the first state to push the ODF and our standard.  Now that we are backing off and accepting Microsoft’s bastardized ooXML “open standard” other states might follow suit.

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      It’s a sad a pathetic day for Massachusetts and the administration that has allowed this to happen.

      • ODF was to ensure that anyone could access files without the need to license expensive software, it’s an open standard that all software could be used.

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        Word and Excel can be read with free software. To my knowledge that has never been an issue with MA. The issue I believe is that these documents need to be exported to an open standard so that the state is not dependant on a closed format owned by a corporation.

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        Microsoft on the other hand is afraid to lose market share, so if they use the ODF standard then no one would actually have the need to buy MS Office.

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        So why in the world would they do this? They are a for profit company.

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        • First, this has nothing to do with Microsoft. It has to do with the state. Adam Oram, says it better:

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          Dueling standards are nothing new, but it?s not in the public interest for a lightweight, publicly developed standard with multiple alternative implementations to be driven out by a monster of a specification (6,000 pages) that has legal encumbrances and other complexities that mean it can be implemented by only one vendor.

          It?s frustrating to see that the state standards committee either does not understand its own principles or is cynically ignoring them. The Information Domain section of its draft describes one of the benefits of XML as:

            Long-term reuse of data, with no lock-in to proprietary tools or undocumented formats

          But that?s true only if the particular XML implementation is unencumbered and disconnected from proprietary formats. OOXML fails these tests, and therefore violates the principle stated in the standard.

          The standards process has clearly been turned against standards.

          • Microsoft probably has everything to do with the reason you have question marks instead of apostrophe’s in your copy and paste of Oram’s post.

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            This is about using software that can write to an open standard. The state uses MS (along with most of the world). This has everything to do with MS.

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            • This is not the Commonwealth of Microsoft, it’s the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that it wanted to follow an open document standard.  My comments on Microsoft are my thoughts on about what they are doing.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decision to use open standards.  Do you understand this?

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              Buried on a holiday week in the summer with short notice we were just shoved Open XML as an acceptable standard after repeatedly stating correctly that Open XML is not.  Quinn said it was not, he’s gone.  Gutierrez said it not, he’s gone.  It’s not ISO certified and it’s not open.  That’s the problem.  It’s not an open standard.

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              You are completely missing the entire point of an open standard.  It’s an open standard!  Meaning that MS Office or any other software product could be used (Microsoft would then need to add it).  If they want to use MS Office and Microsoft has a superior product then buy it.

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              Basically being able to convert MS Office products is somehow now considered open document standard in Massachusetts.  Sadly this whole episode feels Bush-esque.

              • I had no problem with you post – I didn’t reply to it. I replied to your comment. Your comment IS all about bashing MS.

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                You turned this discussion from open standards to MS bashing. YOU made this about MS!

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                Your blind hatred of MS (which seems misplaced given you run a Windows OS?) undercuts your argument. I can’t say it any better then Stormv did below.

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                If this doesn’t clarify my position then please forgive me for remaining confused.

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                • Your blind hatred of MS (which seems misplaced given you run a Windows OS?) undercuts your argument.

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                  Huh?  I’ve never even tried Linux.

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                  I own a copy of Office 2003 and swear by Frontpage.  But I have an issue with the state who made the decision to use an open standard, then added Open XML, which is not an approved standard. Also the way the state did it on a holiday week to try to bury it.  I wanted to post it here so that everyone is aware of what the Info tech office did.  No shock that Microsoft is doing what it can to pressure MA into dropping the open standard.  They were successful and the state’s actions were pathetic.

        • Word and Excel can be read with free software.

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          sometimes.  Formatting, equations, formulas, and the like are often lost when trying to pull the file in another piece of software.  So, yes, that is part of the issue.

      • This isn’t about Microsoft, or at least it shouldn’t be.  This is about open standards which guarantee long term access to government data, regardless of technology, vendor, etc.

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        The problem is that ooXML is [according to some… I have no idea] not open nor standardized in a useful way.  Therefore, ooXML should not qualify as one of the standards that are used, because it doesn’t meet the goals of the standards requirement in the first place.

        Is this right?

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        The thing is, I’m no MS fan either.  I haven’t run Windows on a computer I own since 1999, choosing instead to use *nix and bsd variants including Red Hat, debian, and OS X as well as unix systems at work and school.  But, you’ve got to pull out the MS bashing, and I think the strongest, most effective argument doesn’t utter “Microsoft” at all.  By injecting Mircosoft and slanting your words, you cloud the argument and detract from the big picture point: open standards are important for government documents, and ooXML shouldn’t qualify because it is neither open nor standard.

  3. As a long time professional software developer, I am disturbed by the dominance of Microsoft.

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    It reminds me of the days of the mainframe, when IBM had over 80% of the market.  Their operating systems and software were crude by today’s standards, but, with no real competition, there was little incentive to improve.  Someone once remarked to me that what IBM knew best was “how to sell things.”  The same is true of Microsoft today.

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    In the early days of the PC, there was lively competition between word processors (Word Perfect, Wordstar), databases (dBase, Paradox), spreadsheets (Lotus 1-2-3, Quattro Pro), and web browsers (Netscape, Mosaic).  Now, with the notable exception of the excellent Firefox web browser (which I use exclusively), those days are long gone, at least as far as standard office applications are concerned.

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    As a software developer, I saw Borland International introduce the first Integrated Development Environment (editor, compiler, debugger in a single package) with Turbo Pascal, and then the first “application framework” – a library that simplified development of Windows applications.  While Borland made significant innovations, Microsoft imitated them (usually very poorly) and used their financial clout to dominate the market.  Today I use Borland’s Delphi for most of my software development.  Delphi provides simple, effective, and well organized methods to develop software, in contrast to Microsoft’s overcomplicated chaotic mess.

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    Microsoft talks about their innovations, but they are not an innovative company. They have grown through market strategies, acquisition, and imitation – not tecnical excellence.  They have all but obliterated their competition, and I find that to be more than sufficient reason for our state agencies to look elsewhere for software.

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    There is a no-cost alternative:

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    A couple of years ago I downloaded Open Office (the free, Open Source Office Suite, http://www.openoffic…) and decided that it just was not on a par with MS Office.  A few months ago I downloaded it again and came to a very different conclusion, at least about the word processor.  I have been a fairly high powered user of MS Word, and utilize its advanced features.  I have been using Open Office Writer for a couple of months now and have yet to see any reason why anyone should pay money for MS Word.  I have not used the other office applications enough to have an intelligent opinion about them.

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    Based on my experience with Open Office Writer, I feel that Massachusetts would potentially save a great deal of money, as well as set an example for others, by moving to this software.

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