Massachusetts may be fighting for the freedom of our documents (and our thoughts)
One of Microsoft’s major strategies in recent years has been to take control of or subvert standards and licensing mechanisms in ways that ensure that they can throw their considerable weight around in ways that will continue to make life difficult for those in the open source universe.
One of their most successful arenas has been in office documents, where their Microsoft Office formats (esp. Microsoft Word) have become de facto “standards”, typically without the (many, many) people involved thinking once (much less twice) about the implications thereof. Being someone who deliberately doesn’t run any Microsoft software on my computers, I’m particularly aware of just how many Word documents I get as attachments, and often rant about the many problems that can generate.
The state of Massachusetts is engaged in what could be a very important battle to change this trend. They have an Open Standards Policy that recognizes that there is a powerful public interest in ensuring that the discussion and ideas that drive and define our government, policies, and ideals can’t be lost or locked up because they’re written, distributed, or stored using closed, proprietary file formats. They are consequently requiring that at least the final “official” version of government documents be in a form taken from a list of approved, open formats. It’s all quite wonderful stuff, and I wish them all the success in the world in this important endeavor.
At the moment, however, Massachusetts officials and Microsoft are involved in key negotiations about how and whether Microsofts Office XML is an “open standard”. At first it seemed that it wasn’t going to be, but now the state says that Microsoft is willing to change some of their policies in a way that would make it acceptable. There are doubts, however, and the devil is always in the details.
Massachusetts is taking open comments through the end of March, and I think it’s of enormous importance to all Americans (and no doubt far beyond) how this turns out. If Massachusetts gets this right, along with even a handful of other states (not to mention countries - the EU is engaged in similar discussions), then it could have an incredibly powerful positive effect.
Currently listening to: the title track from Chris Cutler’s very cool new album Twice around the earth
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