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We all use computers. Well, most of us do, anyway. We use them at work
and at home and at play. We love them, we hate them, and we're dependent
upon them. We communicate with them, we learn with them, we create with
them and are entertained by them.
Underlying all this wonderful functionality is a simple fact. The
essence of a computer is to do one thing: manipulate data.
Many of us spend hours upon hours creating this data. We hammer out
documents in word processors, crunch numbers in spread sheets, make pretty
pictures for presentations and mine databases for useful information.
We create all this data for two reasons: to be used by ourselves at
some future date or to make it available for someone else's use.
But who's data is it, really?
Historically most documents were created using proprietary
applications. Once upon a time there was Word Star and VisiCalc. Then it
seemed everything was about Word Perfect and Lotus 123. Eventually
Microsoft took over with their now ubiquitous Office suite.
All of these applications save your data in proprietary file formats.
Only the creator of the application knows the format of your data, and
only their applications can be used to read it. For the business creating
the software this vendor lock-in is a great thing. By simply changing the
format of the data files they can force their users to buy new copies of
the software.
For you, the creator of the data, vendor lock-in is nothing but
trouble.
If the plan is to use that data in the future you better pray that an
application will still exist to read that file. Just the other day I was
trying to open up some files I created about 15 years ago in Word Perfect.
After spending hours hunting down various translating programs and booting
up an old Windows system I was finally able to read them. I can't imagine
what the tribulations would have been if the documents were created in
Word Star!
On the other hand if the documents are to be used by someone else they
better have that same application. As much as Microsoft would love it to
happen, the idea of everyone using their software is simply not going to
happen any more than we can expect the entire world to speak English.
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This is especially important for public entities. Most information
produced by a public entity should be freely available to the people. If
that information is in a proprietary file format it can no longer be
considered freely available.
The only way to handle this is to save the data using file formats that
are defined by open standards. These Open file formats ensure the
independence of the data from the underlying system and applications.
Fortunately some places are actually starting to get it.
The State of Massachusetts recently released a draft document that
calls for all government documents to be in an open file format by 2007.
By doing this they have ensured the future readability of all documents
they produce. Not only that but they have also taken a step toward
avoiding vendor lock-in and the upgrade treadmill.
To accomplish this the Massachusetts government is turning to the
OpenDocument specification defined by the Organization for Advancement of
Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Like the forthcoming Microsoft
document formats, OpenDocument is an based on the standard XML file
structure for all office documents. Unlike the new Microsoft formats the
definitions underlying the XML layout are not hindered by patents and
proprietary technology.
Several applications are available that support the OpenDocument format
including OpenOffice.org, StarOffice and KOffice. Most important of these
is arguably the OpenOffice.org suite of applications. It includes a word
processor, spreadsheet and presentation application.
The pending 2.0 release of OpenOffice.org also adds a database
application, significantly improves the ability to read and write existing
Microsoft Office formats and adds many performance enhancements.
For those who are concerned about the cost of retraining to use the
OpenOffice.org suite I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how similar
the interface is to Microsoft Office.
The OpenOffice.org suite is open source software that runs on Windows,
Macintosh, Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris. It is freely available for
downloading at www.openoffice.org.
After all, it is your data.
Jay MacDonald
September 2005
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