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Title: Data Formats/Open Standards - No Proprietary Binary Data Formats Why not use proprietary formats and what are the main open alternatives.
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document.write()No To Proprietary Binary Data Formats

Proprietary Binary Data Formats: Just Say No!

I shall NEVER keep my information in a proprietarybinary format (such as Word, WordPerfect, Excel etc).All my personal files are kept in plain text format.So please do not ask for my resume in the Word format - such requestswill be silently ignored.On the other hand, if others (such as a client or anemployer) want, I am willing to access their data inthe format they want, if they provide me with the appropriate tools.

Why Not?

People create their files for future retrieval and reuse. E.g.,today you might write a paper which you will print tomorrow, send viae-mail to a friend the next day and incorporate his remarks the nextweek, then you might want to retrieve your original text without hischanges. If your data is saved in a proprietary binary format, thesesimple tasks are complicated beyond your wildest imagination. Printing: your proprietary tool has to include a driver for each printer you might want to use. What if the tool is withdrawn from the market? What about that latest and greatest printer you wanted to buy? PostScript, understood by all modern printers, is here to save your butt. E-mail: you will have to send the paper as an attachment, so your friend has to have a mailer which understand attachments (most mailers do). Now, if he wants to search all his e-mail for some phrase, he will have to start an application for each attachment - a hefty price to pay for a small search! He would also have to own a tool which understands your particular idiosyncratic proprietary binary format. What if his software version is different from yours? Do you realize that the binary file you send him contains much more than what your application shows you on the screen? [MS Word, PDF] Change Management: the standard diff, patch and version control utilities (like CVS and RCS) do not work well with binary files. You are stuck with the application-specific functionality. Good luck there!Finally, who do you think will be able to read your Word97 files in10 years? The computer architecture on which your current Word binaryruns will be obsolete, your today's computer will break down, and youwill never be able to recover the information stored in your files.Proprietary data formatsDESTROY your information.Additionally, binary formats stifle competitionbecause a newcomer has to parse all those existing formats before hecan hope to gain a market share. This is why we have so many binaryformats: Microsoft et al change them all thetime to preserve the barrier to entry.

What is under the hood?

Although you cannot fix your car, and probably do not have a veryclear idea how it works, it is still important to youthat you can open the hood and look at the engine and maybe, with somehelp from a professional, find out what is wrong. The fact that thehood can be open at any time is the best possible guarantee againstfraud: you don't even think that someone might put there something youdon't want. If your car dealer or manufacturer would have put theresomething bad - like illegal drug disposer or a radio transmitter sothat someone will be able to watch your location - you can be confidentthat some mechanic or just a techno-geek will notice that (this ispurely imaginary, of course, but it is so because your hood is notsealed by the manufacturer).This is why the world needs reverse engineers.

Alternatives

I use plain text-based formats for all my needs. word processing: TeX and LaTeX are your friends. Use LyX and switch from the layout-oriented world of traditional word processors to content-oriented world of document (or text) processing. Your files are plain text, so all the usual tools will work with them. personal contact database: I use BBDB - a rolodex for GNU Emacs. It keeps the data in, you guessed it, text format. personal finance: I use Emacs again, but you might prefer GNUCash, Gnumeric, Check Book Balancer or XInvest. web bookmarks: Netscape keeps your bookmarks in a plain text HTML file.The long-term universal solution is XML - theExtensible Markup Language.It allows describing document types in a universal way, so that one doesnot have to write a new parser every time Microsoft changes Word format.To describe a document type in XML, one has to specify 2things: Document Type Definition This specifies the possible logical elements of a document, things like title, list, table etc. E.g., DocBook is one such document type. Another example is XHTML, which is a reformulation of HTML 4 in XML 1.0. Actually, this very document is a valid XHTML document! Style Sheet This specifies the physical layout of the document type, i.e., the way its elements are displayed or printed. Cascading Style Sheets offer a standard mechanism for that. XSL DocBook Stylesheets and Modular DSSSL DocBook Stylesheets are examples for DocBook.Both DTD and Stylesheets are provided by the document type designer,i.e., your vendor, and made publicly available. Your document is keptin plain text format (with XML markup), so you can view andedit it with any tool you like. This way the software vendors will bemaking money on the quality of their software, not the obscurity oftheir data formats.The fact that the logical structure is kept separate fromthe physical presentation is one of the most attractivefeatures of this model.

Relevant links

OpenContent XML OpenOffice.org plans include Establishment of open, XML-based standards for office productivity file formats and language-independent bindings to component APIs. Koffice also keeps your data in XML Word Processors: Stupid and Inefficient Richard Stallman: We can put an end to Word attachments [2002-01-12] MS-Word is Not a document exchange format [2002-01-12] Human knowledge held digitally may be lost, UNESCO warns [2002-06-17] Writing history with Microsoft's Office lock-in: "If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's." [2003-04-26] DoD Advanced Systems & Concepts Open Technology Development Roadmap Plan: OSS and open source development methodologies are important to the National Security and National Interest of the U.S. for the following reasons: Enhances agility of IT industries to more rapidly adapt and change to user needed capabilities. Strengthens the industrial base by not protecting industry from competition. Makes industry more likely to compete on ideas and execution versus product lock-in. Adoption recognizes a change in our position with regard to balance of trade1 of IT. Enables DoD to secure the infrastructure and increase security by understanding what is actually in the source code of software installed in DoD networks. Rapidly respond to adversary actions as well as rapid changes in the technology industrial base. [2006-07-11] add to this list Sam Steingold<sds@gnu.org> Valid XHTML Use CSS Valid CSScreated: 2000-02-07 document.write(updated());
 

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No Proprietary Binary Data Formats 2008 October

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Why not use proprietary formats and what are the main open alternatives.

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