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Mass. CIO Resigns Over OpenDocument

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

December 27, 2005, 4:44 PM

Peter Quinn, the man responsible for bringing OpenDocument to the state of Massachusetts as CIO will resign on January 9, citing the controversy around the decision as well as personal attacks aimed at him as reasons for his departue.

No announcement has been made as to a replacement. However, Quinn did stress to employees of the state's Information Technology Division (ITD) that just because he was leaving, it did not mean that Massachusetts' progress towards ODF was ending.

The move to standardize on the OpenDocument format for all electronic documents in Massachusetts began on September 1, when the proposal was first approved. The plan was quickly attacked by Microsoft, which called it "inconsistent and discriminatory."

Microsoft has since submitted its new Office Open XML formats to Ecma International for standardization.

Quinn stressed that his resignation was not forced. In an interview with Groklaw, Quinn's prior boss Eric Kriss said that Quinn was ill-prepared for the game of political football that the ODF controversy had created.

"Peter is an IT professional who is not accustomed to the rough-and-tumble world of politics," Kriss said. "He found the last few months to be very distasteful, especially the Boston Globe article that seemed to imply some sort of improper influence related to his conference travel."

Quinn was cleared of any wrongdoing the Globe article implied by an internal review.

Details of Quinn's resignation were first reported by Andy Updegrove in the Consortiuminfo.org Standards blog Tuesday.

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By rickst29

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 6:36 PM

The other Monopoly Powers....

(1) The power to spread around HUGE campaign contribution $$$.

(2) The power to sabotage a good worker's career.

(scenario: MS bigwig speaking to the VP-level boss of both the procurement officer via one mgmt chain, and the tech worker via another)

"Gee Fred,
I hear that one of your guys 'been bad-mouthing our Kerberos. Now, our Kerberos is 100% compliant with the standard... and I'd be happy to confirm that in writin'.
And you know, it just looks bad, your people shootin' off like that. Is he incompetent, or what? You really need a team player in that job.
Looks bad for me too, my customers sayin' this kinda stuff. Now, if you do Kerberos with us, I can probably getcha a good price on those Office-2003 upgrades. But, if they keep spoutin' off this anti-Microsoft BS, well, I can't REWARD that sorta behavior, right?"

It works, and if you think Microsoft doesn't do this stuff, you don't know #%$^ about MS tactics in IT procurement. I've witnessed others (MULTIPLE) being attacked in this way, although I've not been a target myself.

Score: 0

By Reap_r

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 12:31 PM

I think that many here are assuming a purely static situation in regards to the Applications that will support the Opendoc format. Think about this for a moment. There is money to be made here. There will be immidiate competition to sell software to this state if MS does not (Fully) support ODF. There will be some extremely smart people figuring out how to fill this large vacuum. You can rest assured that small details like training will be dealt with quickly with this amount of money to be made.

I think that this entire issue has been good, even if only to pump some life into the stagnant productivity software market...how long has it been since we have had any true innovation in this field.

There are a lot of Naysayers who critisize the ideas that Peter Quinn had, but few of the "sky is falling" comments appear to have any real thought or business experience behind them (of course there are exceptions here).

Any substantive change is difficult and expensive, but in this case Mr. Quinn had a clearly articulated business case and plan (some may think it inadequate, but you can always revise plans to meet needs as they arise). There is an aspect of this that is tilting at windmills (read up on your Cervantes if you don't get this one) but for the most part it is a reaction to some real needs and has a secondary goal in mind of promoting some real change in the industry.

I actually sat in a round table with several state CIOs and Microsoft (along with Municipal CTOs, and a couple software manufacturers) held several years ago. We were there to try to promote change in Microsofts licensing policies. We represented hundreds of millions of dollars in buying power yet microsoft's response was: "What part of our licensing policies do you not understand?"

I certainly lack the courage to do what he did and challenge the beast of redmond to a duel. I wonder how many here critisizing him have as much courage.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 10:51 AM

Hmm, typical... can't stand the heat so run from the problem.

Although I fail to see a problem with any of Microsoft's products or formats since they are used so widely and therefore... standards, I can see how everyone wants to have their hand in the pot and to stand around the Cook in the kitchen. People want choice, so they use Open Source to get what they want rather than voice their ideas to the cook.

Score: 0

By fewt

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 12:15 PM

Remember, IE was stagnant until Firefox took off. Now Microsoft has started listening to people again and IE7 looks like it may contain quite a few items many people have been asking for over the years.

Microsoft's formats are widely used, however they are not "standards" as they haven't been blessed by a standards body. This new format they have created to compete with OpenDoc (Imagine, competition!) has been submitted therefor it may actually become a real standard.

You put it very well with part of your last statement, however you are off target with the end.

People use Open Source to get what they want because the cook hasn't been listening. Until recently anyway. ;-) They also use Open Source because it doesn't cost anything other than implementation and training time (contrary to what many PRO OSS folks will try to convince you of). FREE may be the biggest driver, especially since some of it is damn good software. You are going to spend the implementation and training time regardless in most cases even with commercial software.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 12:52 PM

Agree in part--OpenSource is cheaper. Also remember in one of those forums we discovered that "big=evil" to many folks, so some people will choose anything just because it is not Microsoft. Agreed, FireFox is the best thing that happened to IE from the consumer's point of view.

"Microsoft's formats are widely used, however they are not "standards" as they haven't been blessed by a standards body."

Again the problem would be with how one would define a "standard" (here I am doing the Bill Clinton thing again). To me (IMO) a standard would simply be something that is widely accepted and/or widely utilized. In this definition, .doc files would definately be a standard. .wps was never a standard because these old "Corel WordPerfect" files just never caught on (WordPerfect files used this in a few versions in the late 1990s). .doc is pretty standard to me, even MAC users know what a .doc file is.

Score: 0

By Reap_r

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 1:27 PM

Good comments here but there is a huge problem with calling anything microsoft a "standard". The most important thing that makes a standard what it is would be the ability to share the information about how to comply with the standard. The doc format makes this impossible. There are those that have reverse engineered it to an extent, but the doc format remains closed source. No-one except for microsoft knows exactly how to produce a completely compatible (with word) doc file because the code to do so is guarded by micro-soft.

To say a closed-source, vendor-specific file format is a standard is to not understand the word. How can we standardize to something we don't fully understand. It would be safe to say that the Word Doc format is ubiquitous, but that is a completely different thing.

The only way to have a standard is to have an open and agreed to set of specifications as to what comprises adherance to the standard. That cannot happen with a closed-source file format. X/HTML is a good example. The x/html standard describes all of the rules and specs needed to produce a compliant document. There are closed source programs that will produce them. There are also open source programs that will produce them...but the format itself is fully documented and completely open. There is not some pre-compiled closed-source application producing the only "valid" x/html files like there is with word documents.

It is too simplistic to measure a standard by market penetration. A standard must be fully and publically documented otherwise it is not a standard. It is only a product however popular. That is not to say that catchphrases like "industry standard" have no place...but we need to keep our terms straight or we can't have an intelligent discussion.

Score: 0

By school1012

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 12:07 PM

So true.

Score: 0

By Maxwolf

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 10:34 AM

It cannot be open source when you force people to use it, you can't force anyone to do anything.

If you ask me, after Microsoft released that patch for review everything should have been fine because it would have saved them the trouble of "upgrading" all those machines in Mass.

I be willing to bet, even after that he still pushed for Open Office. Which obviously points out that his views are biased. Bad for politics, bad for business.

Score: 0

By fewt

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 11:54 AM

That's not entirely true. If I am responsible for the computing infrastructure at the company that you work for and I decide that you should use Abiword (hah) to do your word processing then you will use Abiword to do your word processing. If you want Office, then go home and use it to fix up your resume and find a job where you can use Office. ;-) haha

Now, if Abiword was the standard but you had a valid business case for Microsoft Word then there is a valid reason to provide it to you.

That's what companies have exception processes for.

Before you say it, "It SUCKS!" is not a valid business driver to get the software that you want. You are paid to do a job, not to use one tool over the other to get the job done. ;-)

Score: 0

By ServerMechanic

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 9:46 AM

I love this:

"However, Quinn did stress to employees of the state's Information Technology Division (ITD) that just because he was leaving, it did not mean that Massachusetts' progress towards ODF was ending."

Yeah right dude. Like anyone is going to listen to you after you leave. :)

Score: 0

By PC Rat

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 6:58 AM

"...but having some bureaucrat order everyone in the state to use the same open document software whether they like it or not is just plain stupid"

This guy should've been sent to prison instead of merely been allow to resign !

The Computer Rodent

Score: 0

By Reap_r

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 10:43 AM

Some of us should be sent to the naughty room for posting in ignorance...

The fact that Peter Quinn's proposal was for just the State offices and not for all the people of the state is evident to anyone who has done any reading on this topic.
Furthermore, it did not even specify what application would be used, only that it support an open (as in non-proprietary) document standard. Microsoft can support this in a heartbeat but it has never been to their advantage to do it. This is a case that could push them toward that. In fact, if more states did this we would soon have a slew of application suites that would support the opendoc format as well as more growth in the format as it becomes used more. The only thing that keeps many organizations using office is the fact that MS has made it's lack of compatibility a lock-in to using it. It certainly is not features and stability...nor cost. Maybe it is the fantastic support you get from Microsoft...ever called microsoft for tech support on office?

Score: 0

By Scipio

posted Dec 27, 2005 - 11:12 PM

It's all very well to dislike Microsoft and choose to use something else, but having some bureaucrat order everyone in the state to use the same open document software whether they like it or not is just plain stupid.

In short, it would create a bureaucratic nightmare.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 10:58 AM

The funny part is, what programs currently support open doc? Not many other than Open Office, which is not what must people are accustomed to. So what they want people to do is download and install a product they've never used just to read their open source document. So who's forcing who now?

Personally, I think the Word and RTF formats are just fine.

Score: 0

By Reap_r

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 12:23 PM

I like RTF but it is not "rich" enough.

Score: 0

By LRN

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 4:29 AM

"use the same open document software"
not SOFTWARE but FORMAT
And MS says it WILL support ODF, so you can stick with your MS Office if you prefer it.

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 12:45 AM

Uhh, companies do it every day.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 8:56 AM

No they don't. Do you even know what you are talking about? Companies don't require other companies they do business with to use the same software. Choosing to switch to an open document for your company or your own division is one thing, but mandating that everyone do that same, that is lunacy.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 11:00 AM

On the contrary, at all of the jobs I've served as an Admin for, they had policies and standards for application use. And courtesy of group policy, those apps were forced.

Score: 0

By fewt

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 9:06 AM

Companies don't standardize on one product?

Hate to break the news to you, but many companies standardized on Office because that's what their customers were using and demand required them to move away from Wordperfect, Lotus 123 or whatever they were using for compatibility.

MA trying to standardize on OOo and expecting the entire state to comply is no different than say "Betanews corporation" deciding to standardize on say HTML, and expecting all of it's business units to use HTML for compatibility.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 9:11 AM

Standardize on one product? Some companies don't. For one, Walmart purposely uses many products along the same line, in case something happens it doesn't cripple the entire company.

I hate to break the news to you, you come up with ideas and you have NO idea what you are talking about. You should learn to do research before you spout off about stuff its obvious you have no clue.

Like your idea that just because Betanews decides to use HTML, that's a protocol not a product. They may insist on HTML for good reason, but they wouldn't insist that everyone use Firefox instead of IE to accomodate their change.

And that's a single company under 1 direction. Making the entire state switch to the same product, when its not even been fully tested, is not only stupid its a waste of money, or maybe you think MS products are free? You switch to open doc, now what happens to that million dollar license for MS office? You can't arbitrarily move off of Wordperfect or Lotus 123, if they are perfectly good products. You can PLAN to change, but not expect everyone to switch overnight. That's what this guy did.

Score: 0

By GoodThings2Life

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 11:03 AM

I hate to break the news to you, but there are a lot more cases of standardization than exceptions. Perhaps the enforcement is lax, but ask any IT department, and I'm sure they will tell you there are standard preferences.

Score: 0

By fewt

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 10:05 AM

Did I say that *all* companies did?

Nope, but most of them do. I don't need to do research. I've helped more Fortune 500 companies standardize than you can list off the top of your head.

That $1M Office license is useless once the software is out of date unless it's re-negotiated or re-purchased. It may make sense to renew, or it may not depending on the business driver. Sometimes it makes more sense to let that license expire and migrate to something else, and other times it makes more sense to renew that license and add seats to migrate others off of whatever they are using today.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is not a protocol, it is a document format that is transferred using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) how about doing some research before you blast me so you don't look like a fool.

States are no different than companies when it comes to managing resources. The savings of standardizing on one product are astronomical, for example volume licenses from *Microsoft* are MUCH less expensive than purchasing off the shelf products.

Did he demand that everyone switch overnight?

NO, *AND* he had a plan for people that could never switch based on business need.

You really should do the research you claim I haven't done.

Score: 0

By TomA102210

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 12:39 AM

Just how would it set up a bureaucratic nightmare? You have me very curious. Many organizations and agencies across the United States and even those who have offices and operations in foreign countries use the same software, open office or not.

Score: 0

By googun

edited Dec 27, 2005 - 8:10 PM

Peter Quin upset the status quo that has for years been responsible for huge sums of money flowing from the hands of the state to its business friends and vice versa. This unholy alliance between business and politics needs to stop, as it is corrupting the very values we vote to preserve.

Controversy and personal attacks... Is that the height of the political argument about OpenDoc? Was this issue ever about anything other than the money?

It would be nice if Sun Microsystems could hire Quin. I don't like to think of this guy being out in the cold because he upset the school bully.

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Dec 27, 2005 - 7:16 PM

Sad to see him go. Too bad he couldn't stand by his convictions and see the job through.

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Dec 27, 2005 - 8:19 PM

I'd venture a guess he was getting death threats etc. People tend to get crazy when it involves money.

Score: 0

By BIL

posted Dec 27, 2005 - 6:22 PM

It's a shame that someone trying to do good and open up competition should be trampled under the big profit foot of Microsoft. It's no wonder that the government computer systems are such a mess. Most can not even exchange information between branches of the same department, except in the most rudimentary way. I see it locally in the law enforcement systems. They are different at each level of state, county, and city. And they are often not able to share with the courts. It is funny to see in this day and age that information must be shared on paper documents due to incompatibilities.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 9:06 AM

He didn't just try to make changes, he tried to Force everyone around him to use what he chose. You can't do that. I could care less if everyone uses whatever they want, the problem I have is when everyone decides that their decision is the best and that everyone should switch based upon their assessment.

firefox and linux are namely 2. People go to great lengths to bash MS for their product, and then they try to insist everyone switch. They try to impose their dislike on other people to persuade a change. your opinion is one thing, trying to tell everyone that just becuase the product you don't like isn't good for everyone is totally different.

I don't appreciate someone telling me that I shouldn't like MS, because THEY believe they are evil or whatever. Its plain and simple jealously.

Score: 0

By scorp508

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 10:21 AM

This couldn't be any more true. I have it on good authority that the agency he was head of did NOT support his ideas as a whole, but since he was #1 there it didn't matter. It was like your mom saying "Because I'm the mom, thats why." to you when you were 5 years old. The IT infrastructure in place already across the Commonwealth is immense. There were absolutely no plans by Quinn to provide training state-wide to the many IT departments among state agencies or to aid each agency in any way in a transition from MS Office to whatever else. They were on their own with their own manpower and $$$ to do it. Nice huh? Quinn actually stated in a meeting that instead of the fabulous support MS gives that IT admins would be able to "Use bulletin boards" to support ODF and Scalix (The open source version of Exchange). That is no way to run an enterprise environment. Not at all.

Score: 0

By kevindelafield

edited Jan 1, 2006 - 10:54 AM

a few things about this situation that makes mew wonder:
1. mr. quinn did not consider accessibility when making his decision. as a state CIO, this is a big deal as the state govt hires many people with disabilities. this is a huge oversite. i have to question whether or not this was due to overzealousness in moving to ODF.
2. the state has well over 1 million existing documents that would have to be converted. this does not incude the documents embedded as email attachments - the preferred way for organizations like state goverments to exchange documents. any migration plan would have to address handling both document types during the transition. his plan did not appear to address this adequately.
again - he wasn't doing his job as a CIO in this case - just pushing to a big bang for ODF.
3. there are no large scale rollouts of openoffice in large government organizations to date. he was taking a huge risk with the state's IT
4. ms didn't necessarily put the squeeze on this guy - politicians quickly shut him down as they felt he was a loose canon. within days of his decree, hearings had been called, stops had been put on his initiatives. what do you expect when the state's CIO declares that the state is going in a whole new direction as far as it's document management is concerned.
5. in a hearing on the matter, where he was heavily criticized for his unilateral decision, his response was that he was trying to replicate the structure of the UN. yes, that's right - uh huh. i'm not joking here. i think that's when his superiors began to question his thought process.
6. an invistigation makes sense because of his relationship with companies with a vested interest in seeing the state dump MS formats. from a distance, it almost looks like he may have been influenced by these vendors - why else would he direct that the state move to a relatively obscure file format - where one of the only vendors that support such a product is Sun - a company he spent a lot of time with over the last year.

a state's CIO is there to server the interests of the state and its constituents. his decision had more to do with setting a trend, making a statement, fighting the evil MS machine, and promoting his own philosophies, at the potential cost of the state.
this is fundamentally why he was investigated and essentially shut down by his superiors

he had no business going about things the way he did

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 9:07 AM

Who does? Who insists everyone switch? Who demands that you stop liking MS? You are making sh*t up.

Score: 0

By rijp

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 9:14 AM

Hmm.. so those posts with this same name in firefox and linux threads are some other dimwit named fewt? What are you multiple personality? I like you conveniently forget how you like to make general statements, and then you pretend you don't remember..

Maybe you should be a politician, because you are so full of yourself.

Score: 0

By Reap_r

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 10:31 AM

I read the article and the posts, but I don't think i am reading the same ones as rijp. I just don't see anyone forcing anything on another organization or person. Are you being deliberately obtuse and so trying to foment panic, or do you really not understand what this issue is about?

As a former City Govt. IT director it was within the scope of my job (under the authority of the city council and mayor) to specify all aspects of information technology that city employees and departments used. As it was my departments responsibility to support it we were the ones to say what was purchased by the City. We chose our document format to be compatible with the public, the other cities in our area, the county, the state, and the federal government. Since there is no real commonality between the formats used by all of those entities we may as well have used post-it notes for all that it mattered. We ended up just staying with what we had (office).

The CIO in question here was trying to move his state offices in a positive direction, helping to highlight the problem and solve it instead of just taking the easy road and sticking with the status quo. Yes he was trying to wag the dog a little but he had chutzpah to get as far as he did. That he has quit means he is not really a crusader but rather a forward thinker who values his sanity and family more than his ego. I have a lot of respect for him. If I could afford him I would hire him.

Score: 2

By Polychronopolis

posted Dec 28, 2005 - 10:26 AM

rijp, that really looks like a personal attack...

In other news, I'm actually sad to see this guy step down. As much as people criticize his decision, I think this is the most attention any politician has raised for the use of practical standards.

We need the occasional whack-jobs to keep things like this in the public eye.

Score: 0

By fewt

edited Dec 28, 2005 - 9:24 AM

I haven't demanded that anyone do anything, and if you don't believe it then go find one, fool.

Lemme get you started, posted yesterday.

"Honestly? All the free (open or otherwise) software being ported to Windows makes it a viable platform for many people that wouldn't otherwise use it.

I'm not joking either LOL!

With the likes of GAIM / Pan / Inkscape / GIMP / Firefox / Thunderbird / Palm Desktop / NVU / 7Zip / Crimson Editor / Visual Studio Express etc who needs to buy software for their home PC anymore? This + Quicken WinDVD etc that comes with the PC and you are set. :-)"

"posted Dec 27, 2005 - 5:11 PM"

Yep, in this comment I'm clearly demanding that people use Linux! ^ See! ^

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Dec 29, 2005 - 6:11 AM

Good answer, but I really don't know why you bother with our resident troll.

Score: 0

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