Mass. Municipalities to Have an Opportunity to Assess ODF

One of the more bizarre, but less noticed threads in the OpenDocument Format (ODF) story in Massachusetts involves whether or not the many hundreds of municipalities in Massachusetts would be required to use software that supported ODF, or at least be able to work with documents created using such software when they interacted with State government. Later this month, the CIOs of Massachusetts municipalities will have a chance to get the straight story when Peter Quinn's successor Louis Gutierrez, who is implementing ODF, and State Supervisor of Public Records Alan Cote, who is critical of ODF, appear on the same stage to give their views at a meeting of the Massachusetts Government Information Systems Association.