3 ms·
>Busting data lock-in would significantly improve competition and available choices. For various reasons, proprietary software is a lot more likely to employ p
by RyanMcGreal 17y ago
>Busting data lock-in would significantly improve competition and available choices.
For various reasons, proprietary software is a lot more likely to employ proprietary data formats than open source software.
Of course, there are exceptions - e.g. the native GIMP format, which I understand to be a real hairball; but apparently the developers are working on a new open standard to replace it in future versions.
- tvon 17y ago> For various reasons, proprietary software is a lot more likely to employ proprietary data formats than open source software. That's kind of a moot point if you require open formats from the start.
- rbanffy 17y ago"Of course, there are exceptions - e.g. the native GIMP format, which I understand to be a real hairball; but apparently the developers are working on a new open standard to replace it in future versions." Doesn't having the source code of a reference implementation freely available make it non-proprietary? I believe GIMP folks will be perfectly fine if you use their format for the pictures your paint program saves.
- almost 17y agoDepends how hairy the code is really. Any format can be reverse engineered, but that doesn't make it open. Is it really open if the code is so hard to read it's not much easier than reverse engineering from a compiled program? I don't actually know anything about The GIMP's format, just talking in general.
- rbanffy 17y agoI have seen ISO standards (even pre-OOXML ones) that were more obscure than any code I ever saw.