By Nick Rahaim
One of the most hotly contested bills in the California state legislature is one you have probably never heard of. Tech blogs are buzzing about AB 1668, which was introduced by Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). The bill would require that documents produced by government agencies be created in an “open extensible markup language-based, XML-based file format,” or more simply put, an open file format for all text, spreadsheet, and presentation documents. Open standards are nothing new; in fact they are the backbone of the internet, with HTML and XML creating a proprietary free means of communication and development.
The movement toward open file formats is both nationwide and global, with governments in Europe, Latin America and Asia beginning to require the use of open standard file formats. Massachusetts already has open standard legislation on its books, with Minnesota and Texas discussing similar legislation.
At face value the bill seems to be a battle between open standard advocates and the perennial villain, Microsoft, whose proprietary closed document formats for its Office applications have the dominant market share. Open standard advocates are more than a bunch of blogging tech geeks, but include such tech industry giants as IBM and Sun Microsystems.
There are many arguments on behalf of California adopting an open standard. From financial benefits of not having royalty expenses to keep archived documents updated and accessible with newer software versions, to greater flexibility and increased competition for state agencies choosing new software.
Dig a little deeper and it is an industry battle between the titans, reminiscent of the battles between VHS and Betamax of the 1980’s. IBM, Sun Microsystems, and other major leaguers helped developed Open Document Format (ODF) through an open industry organization, Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). ODF has been anonymously approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Microsoft, has also developed an open XML format, Open Office XML (OOXML) which has been submitted to the ISO and is awaiting approval as an open standard.
The verdict is still out on OOXML’s qualifications as an open standard because its source code is not fully published and does include proprietary information. While it was the market that killed Betamax – whose technology belonged to Sony – in favor of the non-proprietary VHS format in the mid-1980’s, open standard advocates pushing to implement open standard legislation would in fact kill OOXML through regulation.