Easy, interoperable, inexpensive. That was the theme of the event celebrating Document Freedom Day in the Texas State Capitol in Austin. Pino Ferrari of IBM and Nathan Conger of Novell showed how easy it was to peek under the hood of an ODF document (extracting and manipulating data), edit and exchange it on multiple applications and platforms.

The demo, which was attended by representatives from a dozen House and Senate legislators and the Offices of the Speaker and Governor, could not have been more timely. A hearing is scheduled for April 9th before the House Committee on Government Reform to examine the issue. Last year two bills were introduced in Texas, HB 1794 (Rep. Marc Veasey) and SB 446 (Sen. Juan Hinojosa) requiring that state electronic documents be created, exchanged, and maintained in an open format as designated by the State’s Department of Information Resources. Hearings were held, and what emerged from last year’s session were interim charges in both the House and Senate directing the relevant committees to study and make recommendations on the adoption of an open document format.

People will pay attention to what happens in Texas, the second largest economy in the US and the 15th largest in the world. It’s also a rapidly-growing economy whose government is looking to streamline and simplify operations, and save some taxpayer money in the process.