Direct transcription of Pacheco exchange
November 07, 2005 | categories: Uncategorized | View CommentsDavid Berlind of ZDNet has a lengthy analysis of the Halloween hearing of Massachusetts' Committee on Post Audit and Oversight. He also has what he claims is a transcription of the passage I quoted yesterday from Andy Updegrove's "rough transcription." Additionally, he has the audio available for download. From Berlind:
[MP@44:05] In the proposal that the Library of Congress has before them, have they opted for OpenOffice?I'm downloading the audio right now. It appears that a section of Pacheco's statements (not the one quoted above) that Berlind claims occurs at 31:30 actually occurs at 33:30.
LH: OpenDocument Format and PDF MP: It's different. You can do OpenDocument Format with out saying OpenOffice, right? So we have a proposal that is before us with ETRM that basically requires the OpenDocument Format and anybody that's going to run that system, and I asked this recently, will realize, in the OpenOffice [DB: I think he was implying that the ODF was a system that would have to run in OpenOffice, or, in other words, that OpenOffice is required to support ODF]. So has the Library of Congress taken a position on that?
LH: Senator, like ITD the Library of Congress is referring to a document format. Not to an office application that supports it. ITD has never come out and said that agencies have to use OpenOffice. To the contrary, there are multiple distributors . . . MP: If you could just answer my question: Has the Library of Congress taken a position saying yes, or no. Have they done this, yes or no, that OpenOffice is the product that should be implemented. LH: Like ITD, they have not Senator. Just like ITD, they have not. They came out in favor of OpenDocument Format as we have. And, ITD has never specified that agencies have to use OpenOffice and in fact, interestingly enough, because OpenDocument Format .. MP: Isn't that the practical reality in terms of the implementation of the policy if it was to go into effect tomorrow..isn't that the practical reality of where things are, at least at this time? In other words, the support systems that are out there.. listen.. As we're sitting here, I'm sure some time in the future that even some the people that may be opposing this like IBM was two years ago and now all of the sudden they're in a different situation now.. I'm sure there will be all kinds of things happening down the road, but as we are sitting here today, it is my understanding that it's OpenOffice is the product that can be used right now. LH: Senator, that is not ITD's understanding. ITD understands that there are multiple office applications that support OpenDocument Format and we know from Microsoft's recent adoption of the PDF format that it's quite possible -- even for the vendor that owns 90 percent of the desktops that you fund -- that they too could support OpenDocument Format if they chose to do so. A gentleman whose last name is.. MP: Within the timeline that your talking about. You're talking about January 2007. I know because I had the same feeling that you just expressed. Why can't we do this with PDF and it's my understanding that PDF took well over a year to develop. I know we just had an annoucement but there was a lot of development going on before that announcement took place.
