UPDATE: New York State resident Russell Ossendryver is updating this article in light of an story that appeared first on Slashdot.org on 18 December 2007, in which it was announced that the New York State legislature is inviting public comment as to whether the residents of New York State would be better served by the State’s adoption of ODF or OOXML as a standard for electronic documents.
As a resident of the great State of New York, Ossendryver has a direct interest in seeing that his home State adopts truly open standards for data exchange, and so he wanted to submit this open letter to New York State CIO Melodie Mayberry-Stewart. Ms. Mayberry-Stewart should be aware that many of the issues facing the National Boards voting on Microsoft OOXML as a standard are identical to the issues facing New York State. Both New York State and the National Boards would be best served by adopting the current ISO standard, ODF, rather than the problematic Microsoft OOXML, for reasons discussed in that previous post. The timing of the due date for the release of the report, 15 January 2008, places New York State in a position to have an impact on the international vote in late February, a mere 40 days or so later. The eyes of the world will be watching you, New York!
Posted by ewoman at 1:42 PM PST
