Massachusetts Puts the Brake on Proprietary Formats

Reversing a decision made in January that allowed Microsoft’s Office 2003 XML format to be used within the State government, the State of Massachusetts has given Microsoft’s proprietary formats the “thumbs-down.”

According to the revised plan, only the OpenDocument file format, which is supported by Open Office, and Adobe’s PDF format are to be acceptable for document exchange. According to Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration & Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, “Desktop software that supports OpenDocument and PDF in the future is acceptable; Microsoft’s proprietary XML formats are not.” The state plans to develop phased migration plans from Microsoft Office to Open Office, with a target date for implementation of January 1, 2007.

However, there has been criticism over the definition of Adobe proprietary formats (protected by several patents)  as being acceptable while Microsoft’s proprietary formats were unacceptable.  The “powers that be” in Massachusetts, however, seem to have made their decision - and leave an uneasy feeling about just how great their “commitment to open source” really is.

Read More |  ArsTechnica