Massachusetts to Adopt Plug-In Strategy for Open Document Format
Massachusetts is postponing a Jan. 1 deadline to roll out open-source software to comply with its OpenDocument policy.The I[nformation] T[echnology] D[epartment of Massachusetts] also signed a commitment with the Massachusetts Office on Disability and the state's Department of Health and Human Service to design, procure, certify and develop training for software that is accessible to people with disabilities, according to a document obtained by Computerworld. The memorandum of understanding also calls for ITD to establish a unit devoted to accessible technology.
Gutierrez found himself in a bind in February when he assumed the CIO's position in Massachusetts. The state's ODF policy called for executive-branch agencies by Jan. 1, 2007, to use office applications that are conformant with ODF and to configure those applications to save documents in ODF by default. But the only office applications that could do that -- such as the open-source OpenOffice and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice -- are not fully supported by the major screen readers and magnifiers that people with disabilities use.
posted by Aaron Silverstein @ 1:52 PM
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