Mar 19, 2009
Open Documents Standards Proposed in Texas Legislature
Fort Worth State Representative Mark Veasey filed a bill this session that would require Texas State Agencies to create all of their documents in an open, freely-available file format standard.
Fortunately for Microsoft, they’ve already succeeded at creating FUD about the bill, even though it’s only been in committee for a little while.
Here’s the skinny on what the bill does, and more importantly does NOT, require:
The bill requires that all documents created by a State agency (court, legislature, department, office, etc.) to be made available in an XML-based OPEN file format based on a recognized industry standard, and available without any intellectual property restrictions on the underlying file format.
What does that mean? Does it mean we’ll all have to switch to OpenOffice if we want to read government documents on our computers? Does it mean that the lady down at the DPS will have to learn Linux and OpenOffice? No.
To really understand the thrust of the bill, you have to understand a bit about how “standards” in the computing world work. Bear with me for a minute, I’m about to get technical…
Essentially there are two kinds of standards: widely recognized and adopted standards created by standards bodies like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) or Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), referred to in our world as “industry standards,” and de-facto standards which are created because “everyone” uses a particular application or file format, like Microsoft Word. The two are related, but they are most definitely NOT the same.
Industry standards are the foundation upon which Information Technologies are built. Ultimately all de-facto standards are based at some point on an industry standard. A good example of this is Wi-Fi. The correct name for Wi-Fi is IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, depending on what kind of device is in your computer. Obviously the general public doesn’t want to have to know anything about the IEEE standards that Wi-Fi is based on, so the group charged with promoting its use came up with the nonsensical name “Wi-Fi,” which doesn’t have anything to do with the technology except that it is wireless. The ethernet cable you have plugged in to your desktop computer works because of IEEE 802.3 (which is older than me, by the way), and your bluetooth headset works thanks to IEEE 802.15. The CSS that generates the page you’re reading right now is thanks to IETF RFC 2318. (Yes, I COULD go on all day.) While there are competing technologies for wireless data transfer among computers, Wi-Fi is both the Industry Standard AND the de-facto standard by which we all interconnect.
The point: It doesn’t matter what company manufactures what you have, so long as they adhere to the defined and open industry standard. Usually these standards are free for anyone to use, or at the very least available for a minimal fee with no restrictions on how they can be used, and no royalty or licensing fees.
De-facto standards come about because everyone in a given industry is using them. (Sometimes they’re referred to as “industry standard,” but that’s a misleading statement — marketing-speak, really.) Examples of this are Microsoft Word and the Exchange/Outlook symbiosis. Non-technical users create Word documents assuming that everyone uses Word, or that it’s “standard” and so therefore will open on any computer. The truth is that Word is a proprietary format that Microsoft created, and is NOT standard in any way. There are a whole bunch of things written using WordPerfect or ClarisWorks that can’t be easily opened anymore because those programs no longer exist, and they weren’t released to the public domain so that open source developers could keep them alive.
Microsoft is commonly regarded as the most frequent practitioner of a strategy called “embrace and extend” when it comes to defined industry standards. They’ll take a standard, write their software to support it to the bare minimum qualifications, and then heavily customize/modify it so that a given technology works best in an all-Microsoft environment. One example of this is the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), that Microsoft’s Active Directory is loosely based on. Microsoft “supports” LDAP, but their implementation is old, and they don’t really support the current standards, so wouldn’t you be better off using all Windows and Active Directory anyway? (At least that’s their line of reasoning when it comes to sales and support.)
I have no problem with them making money and upselling their customers. I DO have a problem with them doing it in a manner that makes government less transparent, open, and accountable.
Now that the backstory is out of the way, let’s get down to the pros/cons of implementing Rep. Veasey’s bill.
Pros:
1. Publicly debated and implemented standards provide a layer of security because anyone can view the standard and identify potential risks, then either point them out or fix them themselves.
2. Standards with no intellectual property limits on them can be implemented by anyone, from a lowly developer in a basement to the biggest companies in the world. FOR FREE.
3. Switching to documents created to open standards would eliminate the need for governments and companies to continue to buy each successive version of a given product because they’d be unable to open older versions of their documents without them.
Cons:
None.
Microsoft is really the only company affected by this legislation, that’s why you hear their name the most often mentioned among the companies lobbying against it.
Where this debate usually goes off the rails is when it gets press coverage. Aman Batheja did the best job he could explaining this stuff, but he misses the point of the bill when he confuses the open document format with open source software. Yes, the two are related in the sense that they share a common philosophical viewpoint on information, but they are NOT the same, nor is one required for the other. Unfortunately this confusion plays into the hands of the established software vendors who spin the story to make it sound anti-competitive or like the legislator is some kind of hippy-dippy nerd who wants to switch the government over to Linux.
The truth is that Microsoft could EASILY support OpenDocument in Word and every other software application they make. (In fact, the new file formats in Office 2007 (docx, etc.) are based on the proposed OpenDocument format, with Microsoft’s proprietary customizations, of course.) They don’t want to, though, because Office is their cash cow, and giving their customers the ability to choose other software applications to open documents created in Office doesn’t make financial sense for them. They profit handsomely by keeping companies and governments handcuffed with the proprietary file formats created by the Office suite. Microsoft’s argument about “picking Betamax when everyone else goes with VHS” is simply ludicrous, because it ignores the entire point of open document formats, and frames the debate in terms of open source software vs. closed source software.
This is good legislation that anyone concerned about open and transparent government should be calling their legislator to support immediately.
If I understand you correctly (I who am always asserting my non-techie status) what you’re saying is that there’s a bill in the legislature to make documents created by the government use a code that will allow other software besides MS Office to open them? Thus breaking MS’s monopoly on document-reading software within the Texas government?
If that’s the case, I say “bravo” Mike Veasey. And if not, let me know where I misunderstand (hopefully not everywhere).
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You have it basically right, Sonja.
Think of it this way –
It would be ridiculous to think that because I drive a Toyota, then I am forced to only buy Texaco gasoline. If you drive a Ford, you can only use Shell, my neighbor with a Chevy can only use Chevron, and so on.
That’s currently exactly the case with file formats — If you use Word, I can only open your file and be sure that I’m seeing what you intended to type if I’m using the same version of Word.
Moving to the OpenDocument format would make the document file formats environment essentially the same as what we enjoy now with our cars — it doesn’t matter who makes the gas, you can run it in any brand or model of car.
Not a great analogy, but good enough for this situation.
The point, and as I mentioned it’s also where the debate breaks down, is when the focus is changed from file formats and open standards to “kicking out Word” or “breaking Microsoft’s monopoly.”
Although yes, it’s true that switching to open document formats WOULD make it POSSIBLE to move off of Microsoft’s products in the future, it’s not assumed that this will be what happens.
The government puts restrictions and requirements on vendors ALL THE TIME. Creating a standard to which all government documents must be created is nothing more than that, and Microsoft can incorporate the standard into their software if they want to be able to compete for government IT software contracts.
This is also where the anti-competitiveness argument is shown to be bullshit. The REAL anti-competitive situation is what we’re experiencing now, since so much of our government’s data is locked up in proprietary document formats. We’re beholden to Microsoft for the ability to be able to open old documents. Other products may be able to open some Word docs, but none of them have a license from Microsoft to incorporate Microsoft’s intellectual property, so ALL of those third-party and open source applications that can do that are relying on having reverse-engineered Microsoft’s proprietary formats. This ability is compromised every time Microsoft patches Word or releases a new version. Switching to OpenDocuments would give government the assurance that they won’t be in that situation in the future, and also give other vendors the opportunity to compete with Microsoft for government software contracts.
I am tired of paying my tax dollars for msbs. Open source is so much less expensive and more dependable than anything ms has to offer. We no longer use MS software in our business or at home. It was the best decision we ever made. No more stupid viruses, spyware, or phone home licensing to deal with.