Peter Quinn Resigns

Consortiuminfo.org Standards Blog

I’m very sorry to report that Peter Quinn, the CIO of Massachusetts who has been at the center of a controversy relating to his efforts at the Information Technology Division (ITD) to adopt the OpenDocument format for the use of the Commonwealth’s Executive Agencies, has resigned, effective January 9, 2006.

You might ask what does the resignation of Peter Quinn have to do with Digital Stakeholders? Well honestly a lot. He is correct in saying that he has been a lightning rod. He has been pushing for the state of Mass to move to the Open Document standard (away from proprietary MS standards). By pushing this he has made quite a few people angry and has been under a lot of scrutiny. Is moving to the Open Document standard the right thing to do? I certainly think so as it removes the MS costs from access for all stakeholders involved. Yet the change is coming with quite a bit of resistance. Why? Well people have offered reasons why the state should stay with MS, but the right thing to do is to change and Peter’s resignation is a sad day. He was/is a visionary who can see beyond corporate greed and control. It will be interesting to continue to watch this play out.

28 December, 2005 |

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