On Monday, Oct. 31, the Massachusetts State House will be home to a bound-to-be-lively hearing on the Commonwealth’s recent move to support OpenDocument Format in the state’s procurement of software.  I wrote to ask the relevenat Senator’s office if the Berkman Center could come and record the session for podcasting.  After a few hours, we got a response saying that the meeting was open for us to come, that it will be on Monday at 1 p.m. in Hearing Room A1 in the State House, but that there are no personal recording devices to be used.  Only reporters may use such devices.

So: I am delighted that David Berlind and hopefully others will attend, cover the event, record it, and hopefully post what happens, as David so effectively does, in all its full glory.  However, it strikes me as more than a bit strange — in this heyday of podcasts and blogs — that citizens of the Commonwealth — say, me, and Dan Bricklin, and others who might care about this topic — can’t record the session and post the mp3 to their own site without a press pass.  I predict the demise of such nonsense policies within a few years, even in the (apparently behind the times) Massachusetts State House.