“Free” has two meanings: (1) gratis, and (2) libertas. When I say free software, I mean libertas, although much free software is gratis, as well.

Choice

There are two parts to choice: (1) different software that does the same thing, and (2) the ability to modify software to do what you want.

Don’t like the way Word handles bulleted lists? Try OpenOffice.org. Or AbiWord. Or KOffice. Or . . .

There are many brilliant programmers developing free software, and you might like one better than what you are using now. For text documents, there are a ton of options, and most of them will open and edit your .doc files just like Word.

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New York and Minnesota just completed studies into the merits of using open formats.

In the Minnesota report, the Office of Enterprise Technology came out in favor of open document formats, but stated that the marketplace is in flux, and it may be too early to recommend one format over another. (In related news, Microsoft just announced that it will support the Open Document Format in its next Office 2007 update.)

The New York report was a bit confusing, advising that NY should not adopt any one format due to the risk of it becoming outdated. This is confusing, because open, standardized formats do not become outdated. That is the whole point of ISO standardization.

New York and Minnesota Publish Open Document Studies [/.]

According to InformationWeek, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency is advocating for removing Microsoft Office from the classroom in favor of open-standards compliant office suites like OpenOffice.org.

It is good to see this kind of pressure on Microsoft. If they would either open up their OOXML standard or else support the Open Document Format like nearly every other office suite, it would benefit everyone. Microsoft is already starting to lose money as agencies like BECTA start opting for free software like OOo instead of the costly Microsoft bundle, so it seems like opening up its platform would be in its best interests.

If only the legal system would follow BECTA’s lead.

The world is going the way of open standards. Even Microsoft, long a proponent of closed, proprietary standards, just got finished pushing and shoving its flawed OOXML document standard (hint: what you use if you use Office 2007) through ISO certification.

What about the legal industry? Nope, nary an open standard to be seen in use. There is an open standard, however. LEDES is an XML-based standard for client, matter, and billing information. It does not seem to be certified by the ISO just yet, however.

Why open standards? Well, right now, if you start using Time Matters, you are more or less stuck with it. Even though I have not used Time Matters in two years, I need to keep it on my system for another five years or so, because I have important data from closed cases stored in Time Matters, with no way to read that data except by using Time Matters. This is a big pain.

If Time Matters used an open standard, I could migrate that data to any software using the open standard (see why some companies don’t want it?). They operate on a “trap the customer” model, not a “please the customer” model.

[via Rocket Matter blog]

In the beginning, there was hardware. With early computers, operating systems were not really conceived separately from the hardware. Software was hard-coded into computing systems. Soon after, however, hardware became the means to run an operating system. All hardware was made to run with an operating system–usually Windows, after Microsoft became dominant. And the operating system, a type of software itself, ran software that made the computer useful. Hardware became secondary.

With time, the operating system has become secondary. We are moving into an age of standards, where only the file–the content–does not change. The hardware and software are irrelevant, because all will be able to access a file equally well. The Open Document Format is a huge step in this direction. But HTML, the backbone of every web page, began the move to standards. With the Internet, all computers needed to see the same things on the screen, whether Windows, Mac, or *nix. Then XML completed the form-content divorce. Content is all-important. Form–including the operating system presenting the content–is irrelevant.

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Last week on the MSBA’s SoloSmall list serve, I asked for reasons why people have not gone paperless. To me, one of the most interesting reasons was based on a fear of obsolescence. In other words, will we still be able to read the PDF and word processor documents we create today in ten or twenty years?

This is a valid and important concern, and fortunately, one which the international community has been thinking about for some time. As usual, Microsoft has gone its own way, but this time, it may lose out. It is also a concern for every attorney right now, since Word 2007 has completely changed the default file format. All .doc files are now obsolete (though still readable, for some time).

There are two main file formats that matter to lawyers: PDF, or portable document format, is one. Word processor formats are the other.

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