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As most readers probably know, Massachusetts has chosen the OpenDocument standard as their standard for office suite data exchange. Massachusetts has published the comments about this decision from many sources, including Adobe, Corel, IBM, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems. Microsoft was extremely unhappy that the OASIS OpenDocument standard was selected instead of their proprietary XML format, aka the Microsoft Office Open XML format, that is under development. Pamela Jones asked me to comment in more depth on Microsoft’s response, because I’ve had past related experience (e.g., with standards, XML, and even OpenDocument specifically). Many people have made brief comments about this letter, but she thought a more detailed commentary would help those who are less familiar with this topic. So, here’s my attempt at commenting on Microsoft’s letter in more detail. [ED.- A very long, but thorough rebuttal of Microsoft's anti-ODF FUD, complete with references. A must read, especially if you're a government, or any other organisation concerned about your who controls your own documents!]
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