{"id":100,"date":"2005-09-19T00:01:04","date_gmt":"2005-09-19T06:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=100"},"modified":"2005-09-19T00:01:04","modified_gmt":"2005-09-19T06:01:04","slug":"massachusetts_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=100","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts and Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Massachusetts’s Information Technology Division has released Microsoft’s formal 15-page reply<\/a> to the state’s controversial draft policy on information standards<\/a>. That policy would mandate that the Open Document Format be used for all “office” documents (ie, word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents). Because OpenDocument is incompatible with Microsoft’s Office applications, the Massachusetts policy would effectively require state agencies to abandon Microsoft Office. The state has also published various other comments<\/a> it has received from companies, including IBM, Sun, Adobe and Corel.<\/p>\n

Although I’m a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I have to admit that I haven’t been paying much attention to this situation up until now. I assumed it was just another case of anti-Microsoftism, an assumption backed up by the press’s “Massachusetts Dumps Office” headlines. I was wrong. This isn’t about Microsoft. It’s about a state government launching a serious and comprehensive initiative to replace its fragmented, inefficient set of traditional information systems with a modern, coherent, and flexible IT architecture that allows data to be shared and reused easily. The adoption of OpenDocument as a standard is just one element of the state’s ambitious plan. As described in a comprehensive technical paper, called the Enterprise Technical Reference Model<\/a> (ETRM), the state aims to make a transition “from siloed, application-centric and agency-centric information technology investments to an enterprise approach where applications are designed to be flexible, to take advantage of shared and reusable components, to facilitate the sharing and reuse of data where appropriate and to make the best use of the technology infrastructure that is available.”<\/p>\n

The proposal for adopting consistent, open standards for document formats needs to be understood in the context of this broad, long-term effort. The state, like other government bodies, is struggling to meet three particular challenges with regard to the large number of digital documents it produces and stores: (1) sharing the information in those documents seamlessly among diverse agencies (overcoming the incompatibilities of its various existing systems and data formats), (2) ensuring the accessibility and integrity of those documents in perpetuity, and (3) guaranteeing that information can be dispersed quickly in the case of a disaster or other emergency. (The problems that governments had in responding to 9\/11 and Hurricane Katrina, some of which can be traced to an inability to share data among diverse computer systems, reveal the urgency of this last goal.) To accomplish these goals, it is requiring that all government agencies use a common set of non-proprietary, XML-based data standards, including OpenDocument for office documents. While the state admits that OpenDocument is in its infancy as an approved standard (it was recently certified by the OASIS standard-setting group) and that it will likely undergo substantial changes, it is nevertheless the only certified, non-proprietary standard available. (It should be noted, in fairness to Microsoft, that while Microsoft is a member of OASIS, the committee on document standards is dominated by representatives from Sun and IBM, two companies with an interest in undermining Microsoft’s control of office software.)<\/p>\n

In its response to the state’s proposal, Microsoft makes valid points that deserve careful consideration. It points out that shifting to a new standard like OpenDocument would entail risks, costs, and disruptions. State workers and contractors, who currently rely on Microsoft Office (or other applications with proprietary document formats), would have to have their existing applications replaced with new applications that comply with OpenDocument, such as the open-source OpenOffice suite. Considerable retraining would likely be required, and untold numbers of existing documents would have to be translated into OpenDocument. “Given [that] the majority of Executive Department agencies currently use office applications such as MS Office, Lotus Notes and WordPerfect that produce documents in proprietary formats, the magnitude of the migration effort to this new open standard is considerable,” argues Microsoft. “There is simply no principled basis for causing the foregoing costs to be borne by the Commonwealth, its citizens, and the private sector, particularly given a) the significant flaws with the OpenDocument format, and b) the availability of more cost effective alternative ways to achieve the Commonwealth\u2019s principal data interoperability objectives.”<\/p>\n

Microsoft also points out that OpenDocument, as an “immature” standard, lacks flexibility in its current form and that relying on it may limit the state’s ability to capitalize on technological advances from Microsoft and other companies: “the OpenDocument format lacks a number of capabilities that are increasingly important in modern computing environments. Modern documents need to be able to handle embedded pictures, audio, video, maps, voice, data, database schema, web pages, and other data types. The ETRM proposal acknowledges that these needs are not yet addressed. Similarly, the proposal does not address the integration of documents with communication, collaboration, messaging, document management systems or other applications. In short, by limiting state agencies to the use of specific technology, the proposal will simply penalize agencies by prohibiting new useful technology advancements, whether from Microsoft or other sources.”<\/p>\n

Finally, Microsoft argues that the state is being unfair. It claims that its own XML-based document formats, while proprietary, are “openly documented, royalty-free licensed formats” and thus adequately fulfill the state’s definition of “open formats” as “data file formats based on an underlying open standard, developed by an open community, and affirmed by a standards body; or de facto format standards controlled by other entities that are fully documented and available for public use under perpetual, royalty-free, and nondiscriminatory terms<\/i> [emphasis added].”<\/p>\n

Microsoft is, in essence, arguing for the maintenance of the status quo. It says that “Commonwealth agencies should be allowed to choose the technologies that best suit their needs, particularly in a context where, as here, multiple open and competing technologies\/formats are available and supported in the marketplace, with many document conversion utilities already available and with no licensing barriers to future conversion software.” But this reveals the flaw in Microsoft’s position. The state has determined that the status quo is neither desirable nor sustainable. It believes that the lack of standardization in technology and data is undermining its ability to do its work effectively on behalf of its citizens. The state, in other words, has made a conscious decision to endure short-term disruption in order to achieve a flexible and efficient IT architecture for the future.<\/p>\n

Indeed, when Microsoft points out the difficulties inherent in translating existing documents in a variety of incompatible, proprietary formats into a single open format, it is inadvertantly backing up the state’s argument. The only way to guarantee that the state’s document archive will be accessible in the future is to move to a common standard today. If translating all those documents will be hard now, as it no doubt will be, imagine how much harder it would be if the state put the job off for another decade or two. The status quo is the problem the state has to solve; it is not a solution to the problem.<\/p>\n

While Microsoft is also correct in stating that adopting an immature standard like OpenDocument is risky, its position here is transparently self-serving. The only way that a standard can move from immaturity to maturity is by being used, as broadly as possible. If everyone followed Microsoft’s advice to shun new standards, then no mature open standard would ever develop, and proprietary standards, such as Microsoft’s, would forever go unchallenged. If there’s to be progress, there has to be a risk-taker.<\/p>\n

What about the argument that Microsoft’s freely licensed Office document formats<\/a> meet the state’s requirements for openness? (In a preliminary decision earlier this year, the state itself seemed to agree with this argument.) There is ongoing debate<\/a> over exactly how freely these formats will be able to be used once they’re rolled out in Office 12 next year. But the real problem here is that Microsoft is a private company that ultimately must act in the best interests of its shareholders, not necessarily in the best interests of the governmental agencies that use its products. It’s not enough to believe in Microsoft’s sincerity about freely licensing its formats today; a state has to ask itself whether at some future point Microsoft might, for good business reasons, change its current approach – or, for that matter, whether Microsoft Office will even exist in anything like its current form in 10 or 20 or 50 years time. Again, it’s important to remember that the state’s proposed policy is focused not on the short or even the medium term but on the long run. It has to make the decisions today that best guarantee the fulfillment of its long-term goals.<\/p>\n

In commenting on Microsoft’s response, Massachusetts’s secretary of administration and finance, Eric Kriss, put the state’s position into perspective. “It’s an important issue,” he told the Boston Globe<\/a>. “‘Open formats are at the very heart of our democratic process. The question is whether a sovereign state has the obligation to ensure that its public documents remain forever free and unencumbered by patent, license, or other technical impediments. We say, yes, this is an imperative. Microsoft says they disagree and want the world to use their proprietary formats.”<\/p>\n

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about the immediate implications of the state’s decision. As a test, I downloaded a document in the Open Document Format from the state’s web site. I was unable to open it with any application I have. I would like to know how the state will ensure that its residents, and not just its workers, will have access to state documents in the future, given that only a tiny minority of residents currently have OpenOffice applications on their computers. But despite my personal qualms, I think Massachusetts is doing the right thing in coming to grips with the problems inherent in the current model of organizational computing. Putting off the pain of adopting a better approach to managing information technology and digital data will only make the pain worse. The state has clearly given a great deal of thought to its plan, and it should see it through. Microsoft has said that it will not make its Office applications compatible with the OpenDocument format. As a private company, it has every right to make that decision. What it doesn’t have is the right to impose its interests on a government body – or, for that matter, on anyone else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Massachusetts’s Information Technology Division has released Microsoft’s formal 15-page reply to the state’s controversial draft policy on information standards. That policy would mandate that the Open Document Format be used for all “office” documents (ie, word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents). Because OpenDocument is incompatible with Microsoft’s Office applications, the Massachusetts policy would effectively require […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}