… as usual …
a legislator in Texas has introduced a bill to require open document formats in all state government business. The bill is carefully worded such that only ODF could pass its test as “open.” The story is covered by the Fort Worth Star Telegram, which is careful to be even-handed, giving Microsoft’s spokesman equal time. A ZDNet blogger notes that the bill, introduced by a Democrat in a state whose politics is dominated by Republicans, faces chances that “…fall somewhere east of slim and west of none.”
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Typical. As much as I miss Austin, I don’t miss any of Texas’ pathetic excuse for ‘government.’ Chicago is at least as corrupt but at a fundamental level I understand basic graft. Texas pols aren’t satisfied with lining their pockets and grabbing power, they have to add their special brand of baffling batshit crazy, like Michelle Bachmann Overdrive.
Actually the text of the bill looks fairly reasonable. But Microsoft’s OOXML will probably
not satisfy the bill, due to the lack of ANY implementations of the actual OOXML standard.
Even Microsoft does not fully implement the standard that they railroaded through the
ISO. The OOXML standard is also very long, poorly written, and basically corresponds to
a serialization of the internal Microsoft Office data structutes into XML.
By contrast, ODF is a simpler specification, fully implemented by multiple vendors,
which is the main point. Search for Tim Bray’s blogs to find lots of details about
the OOXML vs. ODF battles.
All of this is also very clear in the /. comments. I don’t think the Texas politicians
deserve criticism for this bill.