Little progress in states’ ODF considerations

The debate over use of the open document format among U.S. states appears to have hit a wall as experts representing both sides of the issue offered few new insights into the subject at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL).

During a conference session in Boston on Monday, where the NCSL is holding its annual meetings, representatives supporting adoption of ODF — a non-proprietary electronic document file format — and those who oppose such efforts injected few new details or considerations into the ongoing discussion over whether or not states should adopt such a standard in the name of reducing their reliance on vendor-driven technologies.

At the heart of the debate lies the belief by some experts that states could dramatically lower their IT overhead and guarantee access to older file formats by moving away from proprietary technologies, such as Microsoft’s Office productivity suite, and instead adopting cheaper technologies, including open-source products.

By sticking to Microsoft file formats, ODF proponents maintain, states are also ceding too much control to the software giant by forcing future software upgrades in order to keep their records accessible by the latest technologies. In shifting to an ODF model, backers say, the states could retain access to current document files long after the timeframe when Microsoft and other vendors typically end support for their individual products.

However, legislators in Massachusetts, which in 2005 first required that all agencies would be forced to store public documents in non-proprietary formats like HTML or PDF, admitted in the discussion that they have not yet been able to provide tangible evidence that moving to an ODF system would deliver the financial savings some backers of the movement envision.

After years of research, the state is only just preparing to publish its first detailed audit into the cost savings that could be appreciated by pursuing ODF further, according to Senator Mark R. Pacheco, who serves as chairman of the senate’s Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which has been tasked with investigating the issue.

In a series of presentations and a question-and-answer session with representatives from several state legislatures, the only point that was repeatedly reinforced by the NCSL panel was that the ODF issue remains very much in flux as supporters work to build evidence that the technology will ultimately prove beneficial and detractors question the necessity of making a change in the immediate future.

Despite the apparent lack of progress, some experts still maintain that the fact that legislators are even considering such a swap proves that the ODF push has merit and may soon have the support it needs to move forward.

“The fact that we have full session dedicated to ODF at this show is significant in its own right as it illustrates the groundswell of support for ODF on both the state level and nationally,” said Marino Marcich, managing director of the Open Document Format Alliance (ODFA), a consortium dedicated to forwarding the use of ODF-approved technologies.

“People have recognized that this is an issue of control, access, and choice and that they can also save a lot of money,” he said. “What started out in Massachusetts in 2005 has taken off and become a worldwide phenomenon.”

However, despite the fact that Massachusetts legislators initiated the debate by pushing ODF into the spotlight with their initial requirement, said Pacheco — a Democrat who represents the towns of Bristol and Plymouth — the state is still trying to determine whether or not it can save money and support all of its constituents by adopting the document formats.

In addition to the issue of cost, which his committee expects to learn more about in the next few weeks with the publishing of a new, more thorough analysis, Pacheco cited the issues the state faces in supporting members of the disabled community who have vehemently opposed the move to ODF based on a perceived lack of available technologies that would allow such people to interact with the records.

One of the primary reasons the state has been forced to throttle back its push toward the use of ODF-complaint technologies — along with uncertainties of costs and savings related to such a move — is because representatives of the disabled community have actually threatened to sue the state if it does so without finding a way to accommodate their concerns.

“It’s important how we go about this process because at the end of the day, any outcome has to work for all people,” said Pacheco, who has served in the state’s senate since 1993. “When we convened hearings on this proposal, we got the impression that a group in the executive branch was moving forward at lightening speed and not paying attention to what was being talked about by people in the disabled community; others promised savings we just couldn’t justify.”

The state senator pointed to Massachusetts’ recent approval of Microsoft’s own Open Office XML (OOXML) file format — proposed by the company as an answer to the issues raised about its technologies by ODF supporters — as proof that progress is being made in finding common ground for both sides of the issue. However, many supporters of more open file formats, including Marcich, contend that the software maker’s format doesn’t completely meet their specifications.

In extrapolating the dangers posed by the continued use of Microsoft’s formats the expert cited issues that rescue workers faced in accessing records maintained by local government entities when aiding in the relief of victims of the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, in which an estimated 300,000 people were killed,.

“We feel that Massachusetts, by recognizing OOXML, will not get the principle benefits of the policy it adopted in 2005, the objective of which was to ensure that IT products are interoperable and to encourage user friendly interaction with the public,” said Marcich. “These documents we’re talking about belong to the states, and people and shouldn’t be locked up as to prevent access by using closed software.”

Further clouding the issue are ongoing considerations by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) over whether or not it will accept OOXML as an open document format. Such validation could hurt arguments contrary to the fact, according to some onlookers, including Pacheco.

Some experts believe that the issues raised by groups representing disabled users could also be appeased with some convincing about the availability of existing accessibility tools that mesh with the ODF standards. Many such groups were opposed to the launch of Microsoft’s seminal Windows 95 set of products in 1995 based on concerns of incompatibility with disability-assisting technologies based on DOS, said Doug Johnson, program manager for standards strategy in the chief technology office at Sun.

As in that case, proving to disabled users that they will have options if ODF is adopted more broadly by states will be necessary for the effort to succeed, he said.

“A lot of the technologies used to provide access to the disabled community today are actually very fragile as they are different tools pieced together to provide for these users,” he said. “There are actually a number of freely-available technologies out there today that are more robust than those tools and some are free, so, in terms of this part of the debate, there does seem like there’s room for progress to be made.”