In a resounding victory for Microsoft, bills seeking to mandate the use of open document formats by government agencies have been defeated in five states, and only a much-watered-down version of such legislation was signed into law in a sixth state.

The proposed bills would have required state agencies to use freely available and interoperable file formats, such as the OpenDocument Format (ODF) for Office Applications, instead of Microsoft's proprietary Office formats. The legislation was heavily backed by supporters of ODF such as IBM, which uses the file format in its Notes 8 software, and Sun Microsystems, which sells the ODF-compliant StarOffice desktop application suite.

But a bill introduced in Connecticut earlier this year met a quick death. And in Florida, Texas and Oregon, would-be laws were all killed off within the past month while being debated in legislative committees, following fierce opposition from Microsoft lobbyists and allies of the software vendor.

The most recent defeat occurred last Thursday in California, where a toned-down version of a bill in favor of open formats was declared to be stalled in the state assembly's Committee on Appropriations—even though the bill's sponsor, Mark Leno, a Democratic assemblyman for San Francisco, chairs the committee.

A spokesman for Leno declined to comment on the fate of the bill, which was introduced in February. But Microsoft also fought the proposal in California (download YouTube video).

The only recent victory for advocates of open formats was a Pyrrhic one. In Minnesota, a bill that would require state agencies to begin using an open, XML-based format by July 2008 was eventually transformed into a call for the state's IT department to study the issue. That language was attached to another bill that has been signed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, according to Don Betzold, a Democratic state senator who was the original sponsor of the open-formats proposal.

Betzold said he got interested in the topic of ensuring long-term access to state documents after observing the difficulty of accessing old data stored in mainframes and on floppy disks.

Too Much Technology
But during the ensuing policy debate, Betzold and other politicians quickly felt overwhelmed by the technical jargon presented by each side. "I wouldn't know an open document format if it bit me on the butt," he said. "We're public policy experts. [Deciding technical standards] is not our job."

Microsoft didn't respond to requests for comment about the legislative results in the various states. But one of its close allies said they showed the unpopularity of technical mandates.