Peter J. Quinn

Who is Peter J. Quinn?

Peter J. Quinn, an information technology worker, was Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from September 2002 through January 2006. He is noted for his controversial support for OpenDocument, a standard format for office documents.

Quinn established a requirement that all state government documents be formatted in OpenDocument. This created intense opposition from Microsoft, whose Office software uses proprietary formats and does not recognize OpenDocument files. Although Quinn found support both within and outside government, he was opposed in his efforts; for example by Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin. Furthermore, the Boston Globe alleged that Quinn had misused public travel funds for trips to IT conferences, where he was supportive of open source software. Quinn was cleared of wrongdoing, but he has resigned, stating the following:

Over the last several months, we have been through some very difficult and tumultuous times. Many of these events have been very disruptive and harmful to my personal well being, my family and many of my closest friends. This is a burden I will no longer carry....