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A Laymans Thoughts on Freedom of Information and Open
FileFormats
By Tony Baldwin
Had the inventor of writing, if you will, demanded his
rights
in terms of the use of such a system, of course, anyone
thatwrote anything would owe him for use of this
intellectualproperty. Thus, he would have a right to demand his fee
forthe conveyance of any information, of any nature, in awritten
form. This would mean, he would have control overany written
communication. He would be able to control what information could
be conveyed inwriting, who could have access to that information,
and, of course, he coulddemand payment for any and every time
information of any nature was conveyed in this fashion.
Let me just clarify that by being a bit more precise, while
summing up the entire situation in general:He would have control
over the conveyance of any information in written form.
He would control information.Anyone with such power, of course,
would have immense, if not complete control over public opinionand
knowledge. I think we can agree that such control centralized in
the hands of one person would beA BAD THING. This individual could
control religious thought, philosophy, the dissemination
ofscientific knowledge, etc., ad infinitum.
Now, consider even if Gutenburg had patented and copyrighted the
printing press, and all printing ofany matter would, again, be his
to control. Or perhaps, say one person controlled all rights to the
use ofpaper (papyrus), when it was invented, and, thus, could
control any use thereof and any matter that wasprinted or written
on paper, etc. Control over any such process or media would put
untold power in thehands of the individual possessing such power.I
think we can agree that such control centralized in one person (or
one company) would be A BADTHING.
Freedom of information, freedom of expression and freedom to
learn are, and I believe this is a widelyenough held notion that
nobody will argue the contrary, ESSENTIAL freedoms. Freedoms
necessary tothe advance of the human species, of knowledge, of
culture and scientific progress.
This is why we need to have open standards for document formats,
and why proprietary documentformats are to be avoided. This is why
we should not allow specific software vendors to control
thedispersion of information by allowing their proprietary document
formats to become standard to anyindustry. Allowing them such
control allows them control over that industry. They will have the
abilityto stifle choice of software use and will have control over
the publication of knowledge.
In todays digital, information age, if one individual or one
company has control of the file formats inwhich information may be
shared, or if one company or individual controls all software
capable ofaccessing information in said formats, that individual or
company has control of all information. Such acompany could extort
whatever price they wish for your use of their product and file
formats. Such acompany could refuse you license to use their
product and their file formats if they disagree with ordislike the
information you wish to share, even.
This is pretty well the case when speaking of the current
situation in reference to various industrieswhere certain
proprietary software vendors have cornered the market, often by
untoward means andwith inferior products, and stifled the peoples
right to choice. This is why you spend $300 on
http://baldwinsoftware.com/tonyb/http://www.documentfreedom.org/http://baldwinsoftware.com/tonyb/
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Microsoft Windows, and $500 on Microsoft Office, and have to pay
again for them to fix these inferiorsoftware products when they
fail on you. This is why translators are almost unanimously being
forcedto use SDLs Trados and Tag Editor. I assume the situation is
similar on other industries(graphics/publishing, etc.) Choice is
stifled when a vendor controls a market.
This is why document formats such as:Microsofts .doc, .wmp or
OOXML,
SDLs .ttx,Thomsons mp3,and other proprietary formats, specific
to one software vendor, are harmful, and to be not only avoided,but
completely eschewed in favor of open document formats created
according to open standards, suchas .odf, .tmx, .xliff, .xml,
.html, and .ogg.Understand, I am in no way advocating an end to
intellectual property rights. Certainly, those whocreate works of
art, software, literature, music, etc., have a right to their
creations.What I am advocating is free access to information and
the means of manipulating and conveyinginformation.
What are open standards?From Free Software Foundation,
Europe:
Definition
An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is
1. subject to full public assessment and use withoutconstraints
in a manner equally available to all parties;
2. without any components or extensions that have dependencieson
formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of anOpen
Standard themselves;
3. free from legal or technical clauses that limit its
utilization by any party or in any business model;4. managed and
further developed independently of any single
vendor in a process open to the equal participation
ofcompetitors and third parties;
5. available in multiple complete implementations by
competingvendors, or as a complete implementation equally available
toall parties.
Relevant links:
The FREE SoftwareFoundation
The OpenDocument Format Alliance OpenOasis OpenDocument XML FSF
ODF Campaign No Word Attachments Document Freedom Day
more articles by Tony Baldwin
http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.en.htmlhttp://www.fsf.org/http://www.odfalliance.org/http://www.oasis-open.org/http://opendocument.xml.org/http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/odf.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.htmlhttp://www.documentfreedom.org/http://www.baldwinsoftware.com/blog/http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.en.htmlhttp://www.fsf.org/http://www.odfalliance.org/http://www.oasis-open.org/http://opendocument.xml.org/http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/odf.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.htmlhttp://www.documentfreedom.org/http://www.baldwinsoftware.com/blog/
