OpenDocument Format vs. Microsoft Lobbyists (and Money)
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2007-12-21 05:29:22 UTC
Modified: 2007-12-21 05:46:49 UTC
Consumer meets company servants
As we recently stated, New York is poised to decide on document formats (proprietary versus open). If you live in this area (like my co-editor, Shane Coyle), then you have a week left to send feedback and make a difference.
As this new article stresses, other states have been on the same boat and there appear to be no hard decisions yet.
In addition to New York, other states, including Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, have eyed mandating one document file format across their IT systems.
The states above were victims of Microsoft lobbying. This was once covered in ComputerWorld by Eric Lai. We have also told the horrible story from Massachusetts.
New York is said to be easier for IBM to set straight owing to the company's location, but the outcome remains to be seen. Be aware that Microsoft was caught lobbying viciously against open source voting systems in New York. It happened just months ago. [Note: it 'magically' vanished from its old address since it had been initially published, which ought to make one even more suspicious]
Microsoft Muscles the NYS Legislature
[...]
Microsoft’s proposed change to state law would effectively render our current requirements for escrow and the ability for independent review of source code in the event of disputes completely meaningless - and with it the protections the public fought so hard for.
Just like in open source voting systems (Brazil and California spring to mind), controversies and confrontations are here to stay. Do remember that other states have already considered ODF and possibly continue to consider it (open source and open format legislation in the United States tends to lag behind the rest of the world mainly for political reasons).
You can watch this nice old video from Oregon as well, just in case you want further (and living) evidence that American states fight for change internally. Here is another newer one (embedded below) of James Love, the Director of CPTech. He talks about standards more generally (not ODF specifically). ⬆
With over 6 million pounds in debt (nearly 10 million US dollars) we guess it's likely some other company will take over the site (if it deems it worthwhile)
The crash of this bubble isn't just inevitable, it's already happening and receding sporadically because of false announcements about money that does not actually exist (to "buy time")
When Debian wanted to stage a seemingly legitimate election it needed to have more than one candidate running; so eventually the female partner of a geek rose to the challenge (had no coding skills at all, no technical history in Debian) and lost to the "incumbent German"
Even back in the 90s many people converted programs from one language to another. That could invalidate copyleft (and copyright), which already existed
"The Claimant says he is “a computer security expert”, but his background and his track record in the education sense (genetics) does not support this assertion."
