Yesterday I mentioned that New York State published their “May 2008 Electronic Documents Report to the Governor and Legislature” that has been under development for several months. I included a paragraph from the executive summary that I think is a scathing indictment of the “oh, we need two standards for more choice” argument, an argument that has bewildered me in its logic and why anyone would possibly believe it.
If you dive into the supporting documentation, there is even more to refute some of the silly things that people who have fought ODF have said. It’s become clear to me that there is a PR or marketing trick which I’ll call the “customer ploy.” It comes in two forms:
- “Customers are telling us that we should do this …” and
- “No customers have told us that we need to do this …”
It’s critical to be customer-driven, no doubt about that. It’s not so cool to use vague references to customers as an excuse for doing what you yourself really want to do.
Which brings us back to New York. On pages 27 and 28 of the supporting documentation we have
It was suggested by some vendor commenters that in general customers were not requesting direct support of ODF in productivity suite products. To some extent this may be true. For example, consumers who have moved on to software applications which support open formats may be using those software applications exclusively and no longer using proprietary products. However, the individuals who have made those software choices who reside in New York State are the State government’s “customers.” And the State has been hearing about this issue loudly and clearly from our customers, with a distinct and growing demand for open document formats. If all that proprietary vendors are waiting for before they directly support ODF is a “broad based customer request” then they should be aware that such a demand already exists in New York State.
As such, New York State may be added to the list of those who are asking proprietary vendors to directly support document formats such as ODF or other formats that maintain the same level of ODF’s openness. It would be timely for the National Association of Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) to address this demand on behalf of all of the United State’s state governments. It would certainly serve the interests of their “customers” — their citizens — if state governments were to amplify their voices on the topic of openness in electronic record formats.
I think we might just have a customer request there. These types of requests will help ensure even broader support for ODF by software providers, both open source and proprietary. The arguments have just become too compelling not to do so.
If you are interested in seeing IBM’s response to request for public comments, it begins on PDF page 206 of “Download Part III-E of the report (Commercial Comments),” which is page 501 in the overall document numbering.
One more thing. Many of us have been pushing for the need for full native support for ODF rather than a translator approach. Page 35 of the supporting documentation talks about the state of translators. It says, in part,
In general, incompatibilities render use of translators in any situation sub-optimal. There is a list of dozens of incompatibilities associated with usage of Microsoft’s ODF Add-ins for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint at the Microsoft Add-in software’s website.
If one is serious about ODF, one provides native support. Customer statements like this will help make sure that happens. Lotus Symphony and OpenOffice.org provide native support today.
The ODF movement is gaining strength every day. On some days it’s more obvious than others, but today it’s pretty clear.
