Re: [Fsfe-uk] Gnu/Linux and freedom (was Linux in Thailand.)

[Tom Yates]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Chris Croughton wrote:

> I can't take an OO.o .sxw (or whatever it is) file and expect anything
> else to understand it, even though it's "free software", because it
> doesn't conform to any published open standard (sure, I have or can get
> the source, but I don't have time to wade through it to find the code
> which implements the format).

leaving aside my other objections to Chris' position, this bit is just 
wrong.  according to 
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think15 ,

"The stake-holders in OpenOffice.org -- the contributors and users on the 
OpenOffice.org Web site -- have all committed to making its file format as 
open and general as possible, in the hopes of fostering greater 
interoperability and flexibility among office file formats. To further 
this goal, they have contributed the file formats to a new technical 
committee (TC) of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured 
Information Standards (OASIS)."

the format is also published at xml.openoffice.org/xml_specification.pdf .  
i realise that any other example of a free project using an unpublished 
specification would be as good for Chris' point, but it can't have escaped 
his notice that proprietary software derives a built-in advantage from 
locking down its formats, or (worse, imho) publishing its formats and then 
subtly varying their own implementation of them (e.g., proprietary 
"extensions" to HTML in IE and netscape).

free software cannot pull this trick, because (however uncooperative the
dev team) the first person who needs the spec is free to extract it from
the source, and republish it freely, and for any package with more than
two users, the odds are against you personally being that first user.  it
is certainly true that i have never been stymied by free software when i
needed to understand a file format, or a db schema, or a file system.  i
have been thus stymied so often by proprietary software that i have given
up working with it.


-- 

  Tom Yates  -  address@hidden  -  http://www.teaparty.net