ConsortiumInfo: Summary of Massachusetts ODF Hearing and Live Blogcast Text in Detail

“Part I summary:

1. “Senator Pacheco doesn’t understand the difference between open
   source and open standards (and certainly doesn’t understand the
   difference between OpenDocument and OpenOffice). More than once, he
   indicated that he thought that the policy would require the
   Executive Agencies to use OpenOffice, not realizing that there are
   other compliant alternatives. He also thought that this would act
   to the detriment of Massachusetts software vendors, who (he thinks)
   would be excluded from doing business with the Commonwealth.
2. “What he has most obviously been fed by MS et al is that ‘The
   way that this was handled is counter to what open source is all
   about’ (e.g., this, even though it seemed to be pretty clear that
   he doesn’t really know what open source software really is, or what
   the GPL is, although he referred to it often). It’s therefore hard
   to believe that he could have ever connected these dots on his
   own…”

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