Texas, Minnesota eye move to ODF
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Bills pending in both states call for a file format that is interoperable, available royalty free and implemented by multiple vendors.
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Massachusetts and Texas won $2 million grants from the US Department of Energy yesterday to help fund centers that will test the next generation of giant turbine blades, setting up a competition between the two states for leadership in the emerging field of wind technology.
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A new report ranks Minnesota as one of the top states in being prepared for a health-related terror attack. The Trust for America&#39;s Health places Minnesota among the top six states in the
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Montgomery County (website - news) is a big step closer to shopping for prescription drugs north of the border. On a 7-2 vote, the County Council is approving a plan that would give county
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New alliance of manufacturers takes the battle to the states. Smart move.
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The Rangers have been a dominant team at home this year, compiling a 46-25 record at Ameriquest Field in Arlington. One homestand remains and Texas will need near-perfection if it is going to keep its hopes alive for an American League West title.
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By David Garrick, North County Times, Escondido, Calif.  Jun. 7--SAN MARCOS, Calif.
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Earlier this week, more Minnesotans were called to duty overseas to serve their country.
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By Giovanna Dell'Orto Associated Press  MINNEAPOLIS -- Heading home for the holidays, I'm already smiling as the plane approaches the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The surrounding farm country is blinding in its unbroken whiteness through the flat horizon.
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(InfoWorld) - You might think the steady defeat of bills in several U.S. states to mandate the use of free interoperable file formats might dampen the spirits of IBM, one of the prime supporters ofÂ ODF (OpenDocument Format). Far from it, said IBM's Bob Sutor, who sees the recent news as par for the course in the evolution of any open standard. Last week, California became the latest U.S. state to stall or shelve proposed legislation to require its agencies to adopt open file formats like ODF instead of Microsoft's proprietary Office formats. Similar bills in Connecticut, Florida, Texas, and Oregon have met with the same fate, while Minnesota only passed legislation after it was changed from a mandate to use an open format to a call for the state's IT department to investigate the issue. Massachusetts, the first and so far only, U.S. state with a policy on using open formats, shifted that position somewhat last year to order the adoption of plug-ins to enable Office users to create and save files in ODF. In an interview earlier this week, Sutor, vice president of standards and open source at IBM, talked about ODF and Microsoft's rival Office Open XML document standard. IDGNS: What's your take on the defeat of legislation in several U.S. statesÂ that would've mandated the use of open document formats? Is it a setback for the adoption of ODF? Sutor: We've seen this before around open standards. Take the Web itself. It went mainstream in about 1994 to 1995. If you trace it back, the Web was starting in the late 1980s. It takes most technology standards between 5 to 10 years to become established. They start in committees, come into their own, and then commercial interests come in. Web services kicked off in 2000, and we saw SOAÂ in 2004 to 2005. Now, no one doubts that SOA is big business. In the same way, if you look back at ODF, you can go back to 2003 or 2005. It's still very, very early. We wouldn't have thought it possible in 2005 that in 2007 there would even be any legislative considering of ODF. It's great that people are even talking about this in the first place. It's extremely early. Legislative committee talks take time. One year, a member proposes something, they meet that year on it, and the next meeting isn't until the next year. In some states like Texas they only meet every other year. I certainly expect the legislation to come back with a vengeance in the next sessions. Also, government IT policy makers aren't waiting for legislation, they're making active decisions. Changes are under way. Minnesota's bill will give a strong lead to other states. IDGNS: Where do you think ODF is at in terms of your prediction of five to 10 years for a standard to establish itself? Sutor: We're at about year three or four. IDGNS: It seems as though IBM and Microsoft are pitted against each other with ODF versus Microsoft's OpenXML. Sutor: The only one talking about a feud between Microsoft and IBM is Microsoft. On the ODF side, it's not just us, but we're a such a big company, we're going to say something. There's nothing whatsoever about ODF that particularly enables IBM. OpenOffice [an open-source office rival to Microsoft's Office] benefits; that's not our baby, we don't control it. We've put ourselves in a position where [with ODF] there are all the potential benefits of open source. It's interchangeability along with interoperability so if someone doesn't want to use someone's software, they can choose to use something else. I absolutely don't see this as a feud for Microsoft and IBM. We provide chips for the Xbox, we have a large, if not the biggest, services business around .Net. There's no feud. ODF is in the Oasis [standards body]. Microsoft is on the board of directors of Oasis and has steadfastly refused to participate in ODF. We're happy for them to join and would welcome them with open arms. IDGNS: Some potential users would like to see one single standard, a combination of ODF and OpenXML. Could that ever be a possibility? Sutor: It's more a difference in technology. Microsoft XML technology is simply not good XML. Look at the English language. It's a bunch of letters, words, and grammar, and you can use the rules to form sentences. That's similar to XML. You can sit down to write a novel, and so can I. I might write the worst novel, and you write the best. Just using XML doesn't guarantee quality in the same way that using English doesn't guarantee great novels. Microsoft's XML doesn't take into account modern design and steadfastly ignores other XML standards. I have a sneaking suspicion that OpenXML isn't the last format we'll hear from Microsoft. It's totally a personal thing, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a new XML from Microsoft in a few years and one with an architecture a lot like ODF. I could then see a natural convergence which could bring the two together.
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Lawmakers looking to trim Duluth's budget are taking a closer look at the sister cities program, and whether the city should pay for international travel.
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In 2000, political pundits summed up the race in three words: Florida, Florida, Florida. Here's three words to consider this fall: Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota.
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By John Myers, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.  Sep. 12--MINNESOTA   Five federal recreation areas on northern Minnesota lakes could be managed as state parks under a proposal being negotiated by state and federal officials.   Under the plan, the U.S.
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By Max B. Baker, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas  Jun.
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By Neil Strassman, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas  Sep. 6--Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday announced a wide-ranging conservation effort to preserve and restore the Trinity River basin from its North Texas headwaters south to the Gulf of Mexico.
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THE REGION Fidelity Investments is considering expanding a Texas facility, adding up to 1,500 jobs, a spokeswoman for the Boston mutual fund giant said. Anne Crowley confirmed reports in Texas newspapers that Fidelity is in talks with the town of Westlake, near Dallas, to expand a campus where it now has about 2,900 employees. One of Massachusetts' largest employers, Fidelity ...
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WASHINGTON _ There was hope for a cure down in the Louisiana bayous even as the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone expanded like a B-movie blob.  The year was 2000 and states up and down the Mississippi River, spurred by the U.S.