ongoing · New England Town Meeting

Someone sent Tim Bray the notes from a New England Town Meeting about Open Documents. In case you didn’t hear, the state of Massachusetts has drafted a proposal to use the Open Document Format over Microsoft Office.

My favorite snippet:

MSFT: This appears to be an assault on the intellectual property of the private sector.

Kriss: Sovereignty trumps intellectual property. Companies certainly have the right to own their own intellectual property. We’re all for IP in implementations, just not in interchange formats.

As you probably have guessed, I support the state of Massachusetts. Content, particularly content in the public sector, needs to be open so anyone can read it. If they write their documents in Office XP and I have Office 95 — oops, sorry, I can’t read it. But if it’s in an XML-based format, I would have a chance to read it, especially since the readers are free.

Comments are now working

Matt informed me that comments weren’t working — specifically that you are required to register and registration is off. Now registration is on. The first time you comment you will have to register and the comment will be moderated. But after the first time you comment, it will go straight to the post.