Tug-o-war over Mass Bay Charter: Harbinger of things to come?

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Waywardness.

That Microsoft's formats were "Ecma-developed" was a feeble attempt to mislead. So, were you trying to one-up Microsoft when you wrote:

I am not condoning or condemning either format.(?)
EoQ

The closest parallel to your approach in my experience is the insistence of some (many) paleontologists that a privately owned fossil does not exist.
If the various examples of archeopteryx did not belong to museums, the first-found, strongest single piece of evidence of a connection between birds and dinosaurs would be rigorously ignored.

Why? Because private ownership is wrong, in their view.

True, there's an attempt to justify this principle by saying that the fossil might not remain available, despite any possible legal assurances to the contrary by the owner. And despite the fact that a number of acknowledged fossils have subsequently been lost or destroyed. Paleontologists work from mechanical and written records.

No, it's only a wayward refusal to accept private ownership of anything of public interest.


The arguments in favor of ODious (sorry, ODx) formats are of comparable weakness.

A couple of examples of internally challenged arguments:

It's not enough for governments to know that the specifications in question are open enough to the point that they can take over their development should they one day be left to wither on the vine while hundreds or thousands of public documents remain encoded in those formats.
EoQ

The issue is whether proprietary formats can be read by public agencies in the distant future, when use of those formats has long since ceased. That's the point of using the 400 year old document comparison.

Will those proprietary formats be readable? They can be! Game set match to the proprietary formats. The issue has been resolved.

Though "take over their development" is an odd way to describe reading obsolete formats. Are these government agencies to do something entrepreneurial with the formats?

In fact, apparently some further development of obsolete formats is imperative:

Governments need to know more than the fact that the formats are open and stewarded by organizations with lots of paid vendor members who can often be little more than silent partners or sycophants. They need to know that those members are not just behind the specification, but actively involved in their development so as to assure all customers that, at the heart of the matter, there aren't just one or two driving forces under the hood.
EoQ

The statement continues on to say that obsolete ODf formats will still have a vibrant developer community, which to me seems odd.

The issue doesn't concern what happens while the formats in everyday use, but what happens afterwards. An obsolete ODf format will have as little developer interest as an obsolete proprietary format.

And then government interest is supposed to extend to how many people or organizations there are working on the formats. Not applications, formats.

Formats are used by applications, though.

If the Microsoft formats are used by 1,250 non-Microsoft applications, wouldn't that be enough to say the formats will be well cared for?

If the ODx formats are used by a total of 20 applications, all of which are no longer being actively developed, would you say that ODf formats have many advantages?

The logic of this argument does not seem to me to be very compelling.


More important than anything about formats, I hope your surgery was successful. This issue can be argued in comfort for years, but pain is always urgent.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 04/03/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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