Sun, IBM, et al. to fix ODF accessibility problems

Andy Updegrove, one of the partners at the Boston law firm, Gesmer Updegrove LLP, reports from a meeting at IBM in Armonk, NY, that, "There has been a commitment made to not only close the gap between Microsoft Office and ODF by the Commonwealth's deadline of January 1, 2007, but also to make ODF a superior alternative to Office for those with disabilities by that date, if not before." The companies represented at the meeting who I presume are making this commitment include IBM, Sun, Adobe, Corel, Computer Associates, Google, Nokia, Novell, and RedHat. That's a lot of the big guys. Accessibility for those with disabilities appears to be the major impediment to ODF adoption, but from the tone of Pacheco's questioning at the hearing last Monday, it seems to me that the real problem is that he doesn't understand the difference between a document format and an office suite. I suspect he's just pissed off because the world is changing faster than he can update the model in his mind, and he's getting low-frequency aliasing from the . . . never mind. Discussion between a representative of the Massachusetts ITD (Peter Quinn?) and Pacheco, from Updegrove's transcript of the meeting:

"Q: Has the Library of Congress adopted ODF? So we have a proposal from the ITD we go with ODF. Has the Library of Congress made the same decision? Have they said, "Use OpenOffice?" Answer me yes or no. A: No-- and neither have we. We haven't mandated the specific product? Q: Isn't that the practical situation? Isn't that the only product? That's my understanding."

The discussion is about what format to use for government documents-- Microsoft's new formats, currently supported by no software on the market, or ODF, currently supported by, yes, OpenOffice, but also KOffice. It's not clear who else will really support it, but Novell, IBM, and Corel would be likely candidates, though Corel's statement, quoted by David Berlind, rises to to the level of artistry in its equivocation:

"Corel is a strong supporter of the continued development and adoption of the OASIS Open Document Format, and Corel strongly endorses ODF. Corel views Open Standards as a way for customers to maintain seamless and timeless access to their documents, and Open Standards free customers from the risks and costs related to reliance on a single vendor." (Greg Wood of Corel)

It would be entertaining if Microsoft decided to support ODF. If Massachusetts goes ahead with their ODF requirement, I expect that Microsoft will add half-assed support for ODF to make it look shabby. It's stunning that in 2005, we don't have a standard format for writing a letter. On the other hand, we still don't use the metric system in the US.

OpenOffice.org on the Mac

Jason of Real Linux Geek mentions that OpenOffice.org is available for many more platforms than Microsoft Office. He mentions that it runs on "Windows 9x/Me/XP/NT/2000, Linux, Macintosh, FreeBSD and Solaris." As someone in charge of buying office suites for a largely Mac institution, I'm sad to say that the status of OOo on the Mac is tenuous at best. There is a version that runs under X11, which requires an additional installation and a little user education; what's more, it runs slow as a dog. A really slow dog. Maybe a dog that was towing a sledge of bricks. The other Mac version is NeoOffice/J, which in my experience, is slightly faster, but the project, while a valiant effort, hasn't released version 2.0 yet. Version 1.1, which I've used for a few months, is decent, but still slow compared to Microsoft Office. On the other hand, it doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. At the recent OpenOffice convention, according to Tim Bray, a Mac port of OOo using Cocoa will be attempted soon. Sounds like I've heard that before somewhere.

The plywood castle, Halloween 2005

In 2004, I was caught unawares by Halloween on Crescent Street. I didn't expect many kids to show up, so I figured I'd just not get any candy and stay upstairs for a while. Approximately 300 kids showed up, and I had to hide with the lights off for 4 hours.

This year, Aaron, who lives nearby in Somerville, and I built a castle in front of my house. We've both worked at Camp Chewonki in Wiscasset, Maine, for 10 years, so we have a fair bit of experience with treasure hunts, carnivals, talent shows, and the like. I had some old plywood in my backyard, so on Sunday night, we spent a few hours cutting crenelations and preparing the ramparts for siege.

A guy named Doug from down the street got the city to block of the street from 3 pm to 9 pm. He also made some dummy torsos; some collaborators of his parked their cars as if they had swerved off the road, and then Doug put the torsos inside the cars. It was creepy.

The castle. A guy down the street lent us a fog machine.

Kids taking candy from a stranger with a colander on his head.

In this image, I have a red cardboard box on my head. It turned out that our castle was a little too scary for the younger kids, so I switched the box for a jester's hat.

Hiawatha Bray misunderstands Massachusetts' OpenDocument requirement

Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray had an article yesterday, October 29, 2005, about Massachusetts' proposed switch to OpenDocument. He seems to misunderstand the whole point of the switch-- he writes as if Massachusetts has refused to use Microsoft Office, rather than refused to use Office's proprietary formats. The good news is that in our modern era of email, instead of just fuming, I can send him an email. It's probably questionable as to whether that actually changes anything. Maybe it's just a palliative measure used by the Globe to keep zealots like me from storming their offices. Anyway, here's the email I sent him.

Hello Mr. Bray,

In your article, "Senators question file-storage shift," you've missed the crucial point in the argument behind Peter Quinn's new policy. You write that the state will stop using Microsoft Office because it "uses a unique data format that may not be readable by other programs." The part you've missed is that the data format is not just unique, but secret.

This is the whole reason for the new policy-- as you write, companies can, "add the OpenDocument format without paying royalties or licensing fees." This will ensure that state documents will remain readable forever, not just until Microsoft decides to change their formats, as they have done repeatedly in the past. As you know, the Romney administration has explicitly asked Microsoft to add support for OpenDocument, so the problem should be characterised as Microsoft refusing to support open standards, rather than the state refusing to use Microsoft. The state has refused the secret format, not the software or the company.

As a taxpayer in Massachusetts, I'm glad to hear that my government won't use software that relies on a secret format. I don't want to buy Microsoft Office to read state documents when there are obvious alternatives. The issues for blind state workers are significant, but solvable-- a short term side-effect of a long-term solution. Brandon Stafford Cambridge, MA

In the meantime, Citizens Against Government Waste, a group based in Washington, D. C., not Massachusetts, has issued a press release opposing the change. Strangely, the argument presented seems to argue in favor of the change.

"'It is bad procurement policy for any state to unilaterally lock itself into one set of technologies,' CAGW President Tom Schatz said. 'Agencies should be able to accept bids from any company that can provide the desired product or service.'" The desired product or service is: an office suite that supports OpenDocument, a standard open format recognized by an international standards body, ISO/IEC JTC1, the International Organization for Standardization International Electrotechnical Commission's Joint Technical Committee. The companies that can bid on this contract include: any company. If we stick with Microsoft's proprietary formats, the companies that can bid on this contract include: Microsoft. How is sticking with Microsoft not "unilaterally lock[ing] itself into one set of technologies"? And also, this just in: a company in France is working on a filter that allows Microsoft Office to open OpenDocument files. According to a post on Dan Farber's blog, Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie "attributed the tentativeness on ODF support in Office to resource allocation issues, mainly based on the user support demands that would crop up given that exporting to ODF won't have full fidelity with the Microsoft's own formats without some tweaking." The word for this is "whinging."