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Sadly, it seems like a business opportunity: "we'll convert formats for you when your vendor drops the ball."
by michaelfeathers 13y ago
Sadly, it seems like a business opportunity: "we'll convert formats for you when your vendor drops the ball."
- avdempsey 13y agoCould this be packaged as an insurance product?
- Silhouette 13y agoUnfortunately, it could be a very expensive business to get into if there are patent-encumbered formats involved. In the cases where it's most likely to be useful, it also seems least likely to happen.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- sosborn 13y ago>if there are patent-encumbered formats involved. Patents would not discourage manual conversion. I.E., a human looks at the old presentation and recreates it in the new software. I'm just not sure that there are any presentation worth this cost. God knows that most presentations I have been subjected to are not.
- Silhouette 13y agoEven then I'm not convinced, without talking to a lawyer, that it would be safe to recreate in a patent-encumbered format. Regardless of how well patents in general might or might not serve their original purpose, I tend to think that patents that are essentially just locking up data formats do not encourage progress in the way that they are supposed to. I think the US was onto something when it came to copyright and typeface designs, and a similar principle ought to apply to data formats.
- michaelfeathers 13y agoI think this is a non-issue for the bulk of any business that does this. An Microsoft or Apple is going to sue a business that upgrades documents in old formats to their newer formats? Maybe, but I'd be surprised. If anything there'd probably be licensing.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- nwmcsween 13y agoReverse engineering file formats is covered by fair use due to this very reason.
- Silhouette 13y agoWhat does fair use have to do with patents?