Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on October 24, 2003 05:35 PM
Again to emphasize the distinction between data and applications, with well documented data formats it would be possible to go to a competitor or hire developers to fill in when the company goes belly up. StarOffice, Koffice, OpenOffice.org, and Abiword offer a more stable future.
This is more relevant today than most people realize and than many others are willing to admit. If Microsoft goes to bankruptcy, the format specifications, XML schema and other secrets necessary to migrate from MS-Office 2003 will be locked up as "assets" so fast you'll hear a sonic boom as the lawyers arrive. What then? "It's in XML", squawk the marketeers. Sure but if you look more closely, the schema is not available and the file itself is still binary and encrypted.
No big deal for businesses, they can file an insurance claim for the damage caused as their entire vertically integrated network -- from data to DRM-crippleware to Palladium to LaGrande CPUs -- gets thrown on the dung heap like so many Wangs from yester year.
It'll hurt governments foolish enough to lock away court records, tax records, medical records, school records or charters in proprietary formats. While the data is locked away, citizens and businesses alike dependent on the information are S.O.L. Want a transcript to go to college? Tough. Your tax returns to get a small business loan? Tough. You Dad's military records for health care? Tough.
So, reverse engineering the file format would be the immediate work around. But not with the DMCA/EUCD. For U.S. users, add in the EEA, too. See OASIS's work on the OpenOffice.org XML schema for a way out.
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Data formats siezed in court - customers lose
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on October 24, 2003 05:35 PMThis is more relevant today than most people realize and than many others are willing to admit. If Microsoft goes to bankruptcy, the format specifications, XML schema and other secrets necessary to migrate from MS-Office 2003 will be locked up as "assets" so fast you'll hear a sonic boom as the lawyers arrive. What then? "It's in XML", squawk the marketeers. Sure but if you look more closely, the schema is not available and the file itself is still binary and encrypted.
No big deal for businesses, they can file an insurance claim for the damage caused as their entire vertically integrated network -- from data to DRM-crippleware to Palladium to LaGrande CPUs -- gets thrown on the dung heap like so many Wangs from yester year.
It'll hurt governments foolish enough to lock away court records, tax records, medical records, school records or charters in proprietary formats. While the data is locked away, citizens and businesses alike dependent on the information are S.O.L. Want a transcript to go to college? Tough. Your tax returns to get a small business loan? Tough. You Dad's military records for health care? Tough.
So, reverse engineering the file format would be the immediate work around. But not with the DMCA/EUCD. For U.S. users, add in the EEA, too. See OASIS's work on the OpenOffice.org XML schema for a way out.
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