Open Tech Today - Top Stories

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Feelin' Minnesota

Two respected colleagues Sam Hiser and Andy Updegrove have already blogged news of the bill tabled in Minnesota's state legislature to require the use of open standards by state agencies. In fact, it makes open standards the default, and uses the power of budget approval to give the policy real teeth.

Two points to note in the bill:

1. It sets a very high threshold for getting an exemption to the open standards requirement -- only when it is "technically impossible."

2. It aggressively seeks to break proprietary lock-in. State agencies will not be able to avoid switching to open data formats simply because they have existing data in proprietary formats or because they use certain software.

Additional media coverage can be found here.

1 comment:

Sam said...

Jeff-

Thanks for the link. I hope it's clear to your readers that while the post was on my blog, Gary Edwards is its author.

Administrivia aside, it's a happy time and makes our work in The Commonwealth one-half as difficult.

Feeling successful!