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What about long-term compatibility of Microsoft (or Apple) products? How can proprietary, maybe even binary file-formats be accessed in 100 years from now? Citi

by aagd 12y ago

What about long-term compatibility of Microsoft (or Apple) products? How can proprietary, maybe even binary file-formats be accessed in 100 years from now? Cities usually keep their books forever. I have so many files from the nineties that are already very difficult to restore. I could imagine that open source formats have a huge advantage here?! #LongtermCosts

alkonaut 12y ago
Short term costs work the other way though: every company or organization needs to be able to read an office file in the latest format, edit it, and return it to the sender with full fidelity. If OpenOffice inserts a page break where MS office wouldn't have, that is a problem. The open programs read docx reasonably well, but implementing ms word clean room with all it's behaviors is near impossible, and every difference hides a cost for the users that communicate. Within an organization you could agree to use some open format (regardless of word processor), and you could archive in some long term format. But you can't change the fact that incoming documents will be in the format that Microsofts latest word processor spits out, and you never want to have that nagging feeling that your word processor may have misread it ever so slightly.
rmc 12y ago
There are legal problems with binary file formats. Let's say someone comes forward allegating corruption 20 years ago and starts suing the city. Can the city prove that it was all above board? Well no-one can read the files anymore....
mcb3k 12y ago
When a document stops being a document and becomes a record, it should be saved in a format such as PDF/A for longevity, and not a binary format. That would be regardless of if it was created in libreOffice or Microsoft Office.
wmgries 12y ago
Not only are these file formats not binary (they are zipped XML), they are standardized and their standards are known and maintained. No issue here.

by aagd 12y ago

alkonaut 12y ago

Short term costs work the other way though: every company or organization needs to be able to read an office file in the latest format, edit it, and return it to the sender with full fidelity. If OpenOffice inserts a page break where MS office wouldn't have, that is a problem. The open programs read docx reasonably well, but implementing ms word clean room with all it's behaviors is near impossible, and every difference hides a cost for the users that communicate. Within an organization you could agree to use some open format (regardless of word processor), and you could archive in some long term format. But you can't change the fact that incoming documents will be in the format that Microsofts latest word processor spits out, and you never want to have that nagging feeling that your word processor may have misread it ever so slightly.

rmc 12y ago

There are legal problems with binary file formats. Let's say someone comes forward allegating corruption 20 years ago and starts suing the city. Can the city prove that it was all above board? Well no-one can read the files anymore....

mcb3k 12y ago

When a document stops being a document and becomes a record, it should be saved in a format such as PDF/A for longevity, and not a binary format. That would be regardless of if it was created in libreOffice or Microsoft Office.

wmgries 12y ago

Not only are these file formats not binary (they are zipped XML), they are standardized and their standards are known and maintained. No issue here.