"This is certainly a fair point: when Massachusetts
opted for open standards, ODF was the only option, but was still
somewhat rough. In particular, OpenOffice.org was the only full
implementation of ODF.
"But the authors of the paper then go on to draw an erroneous
conclusion:
"In other words, the process in Massachusetts was akin to
switching vendors for office software. While ODF was an open
standard, multiple implementations did not exist, so Massachusetts
was effectively locked into OpenOffice.org. This is why we believe
in the case of Massachusetts, the open formats policy, as
constituted in 2005, was better understood as an OpenOffice policy
rather than a policy seeking competition and choice for
government."
