Massachusetts plans to move to OpenDocument 1.0 as the standard for all office documents by January 2007, following the specification’s formal adoption by the Oasis standards group in late May as part of a move away from proprietary office application formats.
The Open Document Format for Office Applications specification, commonly known as OpenDocument, is based on the XML schema developed by the OpenOffice.org open source applications community and makes it likely that Massachusetts will be adopting either OpenOffice.org or Sun Microsystems Inc’s StarOffice, although another packaged version could yet emerge.
What it definitely does mean, assuming the State’s new Information Domain – Enterprise Technical Reference Model is not radically altered following its final period of public review, is that Microsoft’s Office will not be on the desktops of Massachusetts State employees from the beginning of 2007. Not unless Microsoft can do something about it, that is. While the software giant continues to lobby the state government to change its mind and accept that Microsoft’s forthcoming Office Open XML Formats are open enough to be considered, there are other, more long-term options open to the company.
These include adopting OpenDocument as a format within Office, and opening up its file formats to an industry standards body. These are both options that have been dismissed by Microsoft in the past, and it remains to be seen whether the Massachusetts decision can create enough momentum to force Microsoft’s hand.
The company has previously cited backwards-compatibility concerns with regards to both adopting OpenDocument and opening up its own formats. The forthcoming Office Open XML Formats, to be used in Office 12, will enable Office 2000, Office XP, and Office 2003 users to open, edit, and save files using the new formats.
In comparison, while OpenDocument will be used in the forthcoming OpenOffice.org 2.0, as well as Sun’s StarOffice 8, which is due for release in the summer, it will not provide backwards-compatibility with existing OpenOffice.org applications.
Microsoft’s argument goes that only by retaining control of the formats used by its Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications can it ensure that the estimated 400 million Office users worldwide are able to work with older office formats.
While maintaining backwards-compatibility is a worthy cause, it need not fall by the wayside just because a format becomes an open standard. If the Massachusetts plan encourages other government organizations and businesses to adopt similar policies with regards to open office formats, it may be that Microsoft has little choice but to either adopt OpenDocument or make the Office Open XML Formats truly open.
The Massachusetts plan certainly puts a little more pressure on Microsoft, and it has been argued that that could be one of its aims. While the state’s plan is clearly based on improving data exchange via open formats, it should not be forgotten that the state was the only one to hold out against Microsoft’s settlement with the Department of Justice.
It is also worth noting that Massachusetts has classified Adobe Systems Inc’s Portable Document Format as an alternative acceptable format despite the fact that it has not been affirmed by a standards body but does meet the other criteria of openness.
Massachusetts’ plan has been hailed as a significant victory for open standards and the open source movement, but while it is a significant endorsement for the OpenDocument format, it is too early to say what the full impact of the decision will be.
