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As you may recall, six US states considered open format bills last year. One of them was Texas, where the result was to charge a committee to do further research and make recommendations about what the Longhorn State should do with its documents. A few days ago, I gave testimony at a hearing before that committee along with ODF Alliance members, Microsoft, and others. Here's what the hearing was like.
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This week found me in Austin, Texas for the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit (which was, incidentally, excellent), and therefore able to spend Wednesday morning in a hearing room at the State Capitol. That morning, the Government Reform Committee of the Texas House of Representatives, chaired by representative William "Bill" Callegari, was scheduled to hear testimony on electronic document issues, and I had been asked to be on of the invited experts to help put them in the picture.
Hearings like this (and the other activities that are part of the same overall process) are held every day in state houses around the country, addressing hundreds of issues of all types. But unless you have the time to seek them out (or to watch them on a public cable channel, if available), it's easy to forget that this is an important element of the grist that governments mill in order to eventually produce legislation. For those that might be interested in such matters and wonder what a hearing is like, I'll therefore provide a brief overview of what this particular hearing was about, who presented, and what they said. Full Story |
