The Lone Star State Joins The Fray

PlexNex: NEWS FLASH: a new Texas Bill for “Open Documents”

Meanwhile, Deep Down in Texas: An Open Format Bill is Filed

Texas, Minnesota Eye Move to ODF

TX SB 446

The big news, as reported above: Texas has a bill in the legislature to implement open, standardized, vendor-neutral, XML-based file formats.  If approved, then “Not later than September 1, 2008, the Department  of Information Resources shall develop the guidelines required by Section 2054.124(d), Government Code, as added by this Act.”  I’m sure there would be a phase-in period, so sometime in 2009, Texas could implement ODF.

Andy Updegrove has noted the similarity in language between the Texas and Minnesota bills.  This is good.  We do not want, as he himself put it, fifty different state definitions of open document file formats.

Whatever state you are in, it is time to contact the state CIOs and your legislators.  Send them the text of these bills, asking them to sponsor a similar initiative (with similar language and definitions) in your state.  In California, where I am, start with the CIOs list.  Remember to keep these initiatives under brilliant public illumination and scrutiny, so that no backroom deals involving large sums of cash can be made.

technorati tags:ODF, Open+Standards

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