So what if .doc is not an open format? As I explained above, what matters is to get people to send-in documents in a format that their USUAL office suite (MS Office) supports. The important thing here is PEOPLE, not “let’s be jack asses and play it cool and supposedly forward-thinking”.

IF the State of Mass. wanted indeed to have an open format as their standard format, the FIRST thing they should have done is PRESSURE/ASK/BUY-OUT Microsoft to support one. Not because we like Microsoft Office, but because that’s what the *people* are currently using.

And IF the above was not possible, they should DISTRIBUTE FOR FREE OOo or Adobe Acrobat Writer in a CD, in ALL the homes of their citizens, pretty much as they do when they send you the tax bill. Either that, or they should shut the f*ck up, and only support whatever the rest of the world uses: and that’s .doc.

Again, the important thing here is the people, that’s what a public service/group should care-for first, not their IT department’s wim to go all cool and geeky. Asking the people to FIND and install all by themselves an application that supports that new and weird “format” for documents, it is NOT something that my grandmother or my mother would be able to understand or do. If the State wants changes, they should support their decisions the right way to make the lives of their citizens EASIER, not more complicated.

There are plenty of free pdf writers for Windows and Mac OS X has built in pdf support—any app can create one. What the state government decided was that official Massachusetts documents have to be an open format and one that is royalty free. Open they define as a format not controlled by a single entity but rather by a group. OpenDocument and pdf both fit this, .doc doesn’t.

Yes, in an ideal world, having the OpenDocument as standard would be best, but this is not an idea world we are living in.

As for PDFs, this is not a hugely acceptable format, because it is extremely expensive to buy the Acrobat software (not the Reader, but the Writer). Yes, most companies CAN create PDFs, but individuals can’t (yes, some Linux apps can generate .pdfs, but 99% of the people don’t use Linux). It is fine for the State to DISTRIBUTE .pdf files, but not for the people to send such files TO the state because of the cost involved.