Open Government Slides Posted

Daniel, For starters, you do realize that PDF is an ISO standard, right? See http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=51502 Flash Player is not open, you are correct. But the SWF format absolutely is. See http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/ Flex is open source. Office documents are definitely not open, but they are prevalent, and so the ability to interact with them is critical, like it or not. --- Ben

Adobe has a lot to offer in the way of technology that the government can use and the people can benefit from. Yet Adobe is selling its proprietary formats as 'open government'. What?!? Hunh?!? How are PDF, Flex/Flash, and Office documents open? Why is Adobe encouraging these formats (they splashed the DC area with their technology and formats). Government data should be supplied only in XML, RSS, JSON, ODF or other open and non-proprietary formats. Have you ever been told that the data is 'in PDF' only to discover it is images captured as text? Have you ever tried to migrate date out of Office documents? Have you ever been pointed at a Flash RIA site and been told to slurp out the 'open content'? PDF and Flash are great format/tools in their own right. As presentation tools I've got no problem with them. But when access to government data is tied up in reading them (or Microsoft) it makes visibility into government actions that much more challenging.

Tim. It was indeed recorded. All registered attendees should have gotten an e-mail with the link. --- Ben

Ben, I registered for your presentation but I got pulled in on a critical project and wasn't able to make it online. Is Adobe going to post the video? Tim

@Ben, I stand corrected. Here is an Adobe link that adds interesting information: http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail.html Nevertheless, I still prefer simpler formats such as XML, JSON, for the transmission o