Many of you may have heard about the issue over the documentation format that the state of Massachusetts has been making a fuss over. It must sound downright silly to the casual listener of the news, but it has been a big deal in the technical community.

This also is a big deal to the casual listener, but you need a framework to put such thoughts in. Hopefully I can put that together for you. Ultimately, it is about what it costs you to get to your data.

Think back to the days before computers. Information wasn't as easily accessible, but it was uniformly accessible. I mean, you might have to ride your horse all the way to the town hall and ask for a look at the deed they had on record, but anyone could do it just the same as you.

Now, we've moved into the "digital age" where the information comes to you. At the least, it is email to you upon request. That's great, as long as you can read it. The problem is, you have to pay to see it. Now, you may not remember paying for it, but you did. You bought a computer. Possibly, that computer didn't even have Microsoft Word on it so you had to buy that too.

Okay, so you paid some money and got some things out of it that were pretty cool. Go forward 5 years, Here we are applying for a birth certificate. The government sends you a form in Microsoft Word format. No problem right? Wrong. In the last 5 years, the government has upgraded Word twice and the format of Word documents they are using no longer works with your old version of Word. So, you go out and buy the latest version of Word so you can fill out the form and send it back. In five years you have bought 2 copies of Word coming out to about $200+ dollars so that you could communicate with the government.

What Massachusetts is proposing is dumping that $200+ dollar charge to communicate with the government to alleviate the strain placed on the less fortunate among us. A computer is still needed, but by using the OpenDocument format, the cost of the software required to read the documents is removed. Also, this removes the requirement to have any specific computer like a Windows computer, an Apple computer or in my case Linux.

So how does it acheive this? The OpenDocument format is an "open standard". A programmer who wants his software to read a document written in "OpenDocument" is able to look up how that is put together and do it easily. Microsoft documents are "closed standards". This means they don't share how they create their documents. That way, no other software can read them. They get a competitive edge.

When Massachusetts has its files in OpenDocument format, any program that wants to be able to read a document OpenDocument will be able to do so. The first program to use this ability is called OpenOffice.

Rachel and I have been using OpenOffice exclusively for years. I use it for our mission presentation also. OpenOffice is a free program. You can download it from the Internet and run it. Massachusetts wants to reduce the electronic barrier.

Another advantage they want to take on, "backward compatability". Backward compatability is the ability for a program to work with older versions of the program. Microsoft only does this on a limited basis. The OpenDocument addresses this concern in the way it built the standard. I don't know the details of that yet, and you'd probably be bored to hear them. :-)

Massachusetts is looking towards the future of serving their citizens despite financial status. I may not agree with some of their other decisions, but I am glad to see them taking this bold step despite the resistance they are being given.

My friend, DC Parris wrote an article called The Case for OpenDocument Format in Non-Profits that encourages non-profit organizations to think through this issue with the state of Massachusetts. It would be a great article to expand your knowledge on this topic.