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Today is Document Freedom Day! (March 31)

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40hz:
@zridling: About that slogan in the banner image, "Liberate your documents!"

What if your documents don't want to be liberated, eh? Have you ever considered that?    :tellme:

Enquiring minds need to know.    ;)
-IainB (March 31, 2010, 04:25 PM)
--- End quote ---

For further information on things that don't want to be liberated, check out the RIAA and WGA websites - along with the EFF's coverage of the marvelously open and forward thinking ACTA negotiations.

Today is Document Freedom Day! (March 31)

 8)

zridling:
Understand that the ODF (format) is just that, a file format. While originally based on OpenOffice, it's not tied to that program, which itself reads various versions of the ODF spec. Well over 20 programs use ODF as their native file format. It's not a must by any measure. It's an [open] option not owned and controlled by a single corporation. In the end, I want control of my data; I don't want a corporation's (or a government's) permission to view, access, change, save, share, or archive my documents.

zridling:
And here's a better explanation document freedom by a Microsoft job offer -- http://stop.zona-m.net/node/138

"The reason for point 2 is that if you control office productivity software you can control the format of the files produced, distributed and accepted (even if only by inertia) by all the users of that software. What happens if you, in practice, also own that file format, meaning that no other software can decode it 100% of the times because it's either secret or uselessly complicated?

"The result is that you don't need to be good to win: all your initial users will be stuck to your office software (otherwise they'll lose access to their documents) and will force everybody else who needs those files to use the same office software and only the operating systems compatible with that office software."

JavaJones:
Oh yes, I *do* understand that ODF is open and not actually an OpenOffice format anymore. I just had what I thought was a reasonable expectation that a document made in one version of OOo would open in a slightly later version of OOo and look the same. But I guess that's too much for an "open and free" format? ;) To be fair MS Office formats have the same issues. I just had *hoped* that ODF would at least resolve that issue.

- Oshyan

IainB:
@JavaJones:
"I just had what I thought was a reasonable expectation that a document made in one version of OOo would open in a slightly later version of OOo and look the same"

--- End quote ---
Yes, well, I would suggest that there is fat chance of that, because your expectation - though probably quite reasonable - would tend to run against normal and observed commercial corporate behaviours.
I say this because of - and at the risk of seeming overly pedantic - the following points:
* The need to provide backwards compatibility for computer-based document files has been an issue since the '80's, and it is still an issue today. (e.g., witness this discussion thread.)
* Commercial software concerns are obliged to work to maximise their software sales and profitability, and hence maximise shareholder returns. (QED)
* To do this, the software manufacturers have usually opted for the old favourite marketing method called "Lock-in". They thus persist in setting a de facto standard for what are proprietary document file formats. These formats tend to necessitate (what a surprise - NOT) that their software be used to variously open/view/update/print the documents. (QED)
* Arguably the greatest offender is probably the monopoly Micro$oft, with their various MS Office formats. Arguably the second greatest might be the opportunistic Adobe with the .pdf file format. However, to be fair to both companies, they have put considerable development resources into ensuring that new software versions (e.g., Word 2007) can not only read older document formats, but also can output in some of those formats - if that is what the user chooses.
* These commercially-driven  behaviours will tend to continue - because they work - until a newly-emerging disruptive technology is introduced.
* The initial response by the dominant/monopoly players to a new, disruptive technology is naturally to deny, obfuscate and generally try to destroy the new technology. If they can't do that directly, then they may try buying the technology and shutting it down (e.g., Google and EtherPad?), or just downright stealing it and offering it as their own product (e.g., MicroSoft and "Double Space" versus Stac Technologies and "Stacker").
* If the new, disruptive technology survives this baptism by fire and starts to become pervasive, then it may well become ubiquitous and set a new de facto standard. This would be unlikely to happen without resistance from the established market players. Open Office has arguably been able to move some way towards this, but it is bogged down by a standards "committee" process run by Open Standards evangelists, and clearly it is not being managed commercially if basic things like maintaining backwards compatibility are being omitted/overlooked.
* An example of a new and disruptive technology that emerged in 2000 was Cerulean Studios' "Trillian", which was (still is) a superb IM aggregator for IRC, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo and MSM. It was a fantastic boon to the user. You no longer needed to have the proprietary and peculiar IM software to use each of these blessed chat media. All your contacts were known in Trillian, and it didn't matter which chat media your friends, family, or colleagues were using - you could manage them all via Trillian. The response of those media owners was absolutely classic and predictable - e.g., try to kill it; change their proprietary message protocols every day/week to frustrate Trillian's operation. Didn't work. Trillian survived. (Crikey! I've been using Trilian for almost 10 years!)
* One of the more recent disruptive technologies that seems to have become ubiquitous overnight is Google Docs. If you do not see what it's potential is for disruptiveness on several fronts, then you probably haven't played with it enough, or not thoughtfully enough. There is nothing much that the established market players seem to be able to do about this one except mimic it (e.g., Microsoft Windows Live and Windows Live Sync), or drag their feet on the way to the "open" standards party (e.g., as Adobe would seem to be doing).
Hope this helps or is of use, or at least interesting to someone.

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