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When Should File Formats Be Placed in the Public Domain?
wccwcc writes "A lot has been said about file formats and standards creating network effects and huge profits. That said, is there a time when file formats should enter the public domain, or is it ok for companies to sit on them forever. These are some ideas on when and how file formats should enter the public domain, just like trademarks do when they become "generic"."
When the company that created them no longer exists. At the moment, I'm trying to convert about 20 gigs of obsolete files to a modern format. Apparently no one knows anything about the old format, but for some reason we are paying a company for "support", and they aren't at all interested in helping me with the conversion. Yeah, I can't say that I blame them, but if I do it myself could I be violating the law (U.S.)? Being forced to reverse engineer something is bad enough, having the lawyers tell you it might be illegal or a DMCA violation or something is enough to make you want to pull your hair out. Maybe we don't have the best lawyers in the world, but unless you work for a tech company how up to speed are YOUR lawyers on this? Especially with Hollings cranking out new bills... So, in my opinion, hell yes there should be an experation date! There is no logical reason why trying to convert a 25 year old format when no one else seems to know how should present a legal issue.
The question is not when a proprietary file format should be made public domain. The question we should be asking is whether our tax dollars should be spent on software that produces proprietary format files.
I think that the U.S. government should phase out all proprietary format software purchasing, forcing vendors to make the file formats open standards if they want to do business with the U.S. government.
While I am not opposed to government legislating business behavior, I would prefer that the free market be allowed to work so long as the consumer will not suffer for it.
Maybe file formats should be handled the same way [as patented pharmaceuticals]?
Actually, they are. Apple/Sorenson's video codec (used in .mov) is patented. Fraunhofer's MP3 audio codec (used in .mp3) is patented. Unisys's LZW still-image codec (used in .gif) is patented. Iterated Systems's fractal-transform still-image codec is patented.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I respectfully beg to disagree.
The very idea of "forcibly placing" ones work into the "public domain by law" is quite distasteful.
If you spent 10 years developing a superior compression routine because you were sure it would revolutionize the graphics industry, wouldn't you expect to have some ability to control the sale of your work afterwards? I sure as hell would. I didn't invest 10 years of my life on a project just to have governmnet rip it away from me and say "Sorry pal, we're forcing that into the public domain."
On the other hand, as I already posted here - I do think the copyright protection on digital works should expire after a limited time period. (Let's say we agree that 5 years is more than adequate?) This is all the time a developer should ever need as a "window" to make all the money he or she can from their work. After that, the balance shifts.... It causes more problems than it solves to let the developer retain rights to the old code. By now, he/she has surely developed something newer/fresher, because it's no longer possible to make a profit from the 5 year old software.
I think it's helpful to make this distinction because the formats can easily be made public domain, whereas the codecs are usually subject to patents and/or require licensing.
File interchange becomes much simpler if you stop worrying about codecs, and concentrate on supporting formats - Linux tools for video could read & write the AVI format (just interleaved RIFF chunks) but either use a free codec, or none at all, without creating yet another video file standard.
MS Word is a different problem - although RTF is the preferred interchange format anyway. Certainly my partner (who occasionally works as a freelance proof-reader) uses RTF extensively with her clients instead of Word native format. The RTF v1.6 spec. is available in the MSDN, and includes sample reader & writer source code.
Jon.
[analogy between car tyres and video codecs]
You can drive down the street with any decent set of tyres; in general (excepting extreme road conditions), you don't have to match your tyres to the road. On the other hand, you can't watch a particular file with just any codec; it has to be able to understand the particular format of compressed data.
Sorenson isn't a file format
ASCII isn't a file format either, but both Sorenson Video and ASCII (as encodings) share the characteristics of a file format that apply to the present discussion.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Companies with virtual monopolies, like Microsoft, should be required to place their file formats in the public domain (make them public and free). Otherwise, monopolies can use file formats to compete unfairly.
I really believe that if you are going to impose a restriction like this against MS then you should impose it industry-wide. Otherwise, future virtual monopolies will use file formats to compete unfairly.
having the lawyers tell you it might be illegal or a DMCA violation
The DMCA's circumvention ban makes an explicit exemption regarding reverse engineering for purposes of interoperability (17 USC 1201(f)).
So, in my opinion, hell yes there should be an experation date! There is no logical reason why trying to convert a 25 year old format when no one else seems to know how should present a legal issue.
If we were to allow (well-thought-out) software patents, this wouldn't be a problem, as any 20-year-old invention (in the USA, patents last up to filing date + 20 years) would be described in great detail.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Is it via a plugin in your illustration software that allows embedding only?
Or, does it convert from their format into something more usable?
If it does the latter, seems the first thing I'd do is use a standard Windows macro program to automate the process of extracting images, and let it run overnight.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
There may be many patents involved with products that also generate or use proprietary file formats but the patent itself can not protect the secrecy required.
And, why is that?
Patents and trade secrets are diametrically opposed to each other. You simply can not have a trade secret and a patent cover the same idea or concept.
The reason is that patents must fully disclose how to make the "object" and allow anyone following the patent information to do so. That is a fundamental requirement of a valid patent.
A trade secret on the other hand only works because that kind of information is keep from everyone else. So, the two concepts are fundamentally opposed.
That does not mean that software covered by a patent can not use proprietary and hidden formats. Rather it simply means that the file format is not covered by the patent.
It is certainly possible for a software program to be covered in part by a patent, covered in part by copyright and covered in part by a trade secret (non disclosed file formats). Copyrights might disclose enough information to "out" a file format but the entire source code does not to be part of the copyright application. Parts of it can easily be and usually are redacted to hide key parts. No doubt the code that actually generates the formats would be conveniently redacted out.
The real question is whether anyone should buy software that uses proprietary or non disclosed file formats. Clearly SUN (StarOffice) and OpenOffice.Org think it is a real advantage to not use a proprietary file format (XML). Microsoft thinks a proprietary one ties customers to their own product lines and thinks it is a great idea. But, it is only a great idea for the vendor not the customer. The customer would always be better off if a known format is being used and the known format is not proprietary. After all, the data belongs to the customer not the vendor of the code. And, the vendor should not taking any step which reduces the customers legitimate use of their own data. (Even if it strengthens the monopoly.)
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And the best way the government can accomplish this is not by passing a law -- I am strongly against the government taking something that a company feels is proprietary and simply making it public. But, it could be accomplished simply by stating that the government itself will only use documented formats for data, which will require all major software vendors to document theirs.
AND just to clarify, this is not saying that all formats should be standardized or designed by committee or only changed with public approval...companies can make whatever format they want and change it whenever they want, as long as they document it.
So for this I came up with the idea of the Open Data Format Initiative...which I have done nothing with yet, but might one of these years. I even bounced the idea off a few politicians!
- adam
BoyPlankton replies: I really believe that if you are going to impose a restriction like this against MS then you should impose it industry-wide. Otherwise, future virtual monopolies will use file formats to compete unfairly.
It's been clearly demonstrated that Microsoft can and does use its monopoly power abusively. No, it's not illegal to be a monopoly. But yes, it is illegal to abuse your position as a monopoly. That's what the Sherman Anti-Trust act is all about.
You can't use some prior-restraint against a company that might become a monopoly because it would be "unfair" to a convicted abusive monopolist. At best that's being an apologist for abusive monopolies.
At the very least Microsoft should be forced to open their file formats and APIs, fully documented, in the interest of interoperability with other platforms. It has been shown time and time again that they will otherwise abuse their position as a monopoly to crush other companies and projects (Dr. DOS, PC-DOS, Netscape, Samba). This clearly should be part of the remedy phase of the trial. Let's remember - they've already been convicted. Now we're looking at remedies that are supposed to preclude them from engaging in such behaviour in the future. Clearly, a promise to do so is woefully inadequate.
IMHO, All Intellectual Property, 25 years after the death of the creator/IP holder or 75 years after first publication in any event. Otherwise Disney, AOL-Time-Warner, and a handful of other companies will own our culture. The Constitution makes a very specific provision for copyright expiration, the purpose of copyrights, and the purpose of expiring them for the benefit of the public.
The very idea of "forcibly placing" ones work into the "public domain by law" is quite distasteful.
Um, that's exactly what a patent is, and does. You document your method in detail for all to see, and in exchange, you can decide who uses the method for a limited amount of time. After the patent expires, potentially everyone benefits from your documentation freely.
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I didn't invest 10 years of my life on a project just to have governmnet rip it away from me and say "Sorry pal, we're forcing that into the public domain."
The question, though, is whether your right to profit outweighs society's interest in being able to exchange data without paying outrageous prices for software, the most obvious example being Word doc files. The proprietary file format is what keeps people locked into Word, and it costs our government, businesses, schools and individuals billions of dollars annually. All that for the profit of one company.
You might spend 10 years creating a file format, but the bottom line is that to make money off of it, it has to be used with some program that customers use to store, create or manipulate data that they own - they should not be restricted in ways that they can access that data, which is the upshot of a proprietary file format. I agree that people should have the right to profit from their inventions, but not in a situation that puts the majority of society at a severe disadvantage.
Also - many people would argue that putting file formats in the public domain would have a "chilling effect" on the development of new file formats. I heartily disagree with that. We've already seen a number of file formats developed for Open Source / Free Software programs, or developed by consortiums where many universities and businesses sponsor the development of standards for their mutual interest. This is far preferable to the development of formats by companies that then try to monopolize a market and charge outrageous prices for their software. Yes, it might slow down development, but is that a bad thing? I think not. The cost of upgrading software to keep up with software upgrades that are driven by profit motives instead of actual technological necessity is draining the budgets of schools, businesses and individuals who have to keep up with this endless cycle. Something that would slow this cycle would be of enormous benefit to the vast majority of society - it would be harmful only to those companies like Microsoft that depend on perpetual upgrades for revenue. I can't say I'd weep for them.
This discussion is particularly timely now that Microsoft is trying to pioneer subscription software. If you can't buy the program outright, and a company can shut off your access to data you own at any time, the format should be open to allow people access to their data through other means. I can easily see a scenario with Microsoft holding businesses hostage and raising their subscription prices every six months.
Even 5 years is too long to wait to be able to get at your own data.
Eventually, the market will demand open formats. In fact, there seems to be evidence (no, I can't cite, you'll just have to trust me or do your own research) that this is already happening.
Bullshit. When the company has a monopoly the market has no choice. The one thing most "free market" advocates fail to grasp is that the marked forces cease to work once monopoly is established. Proprietary file formats amount to an unlimited monopoly. At least with copyrights and patents the monopoly is limited in duration.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Yeah, but no one forces you to file for patents. You could keep your invention a trade secret instead (like Sorenson does).
Do what I've done. Install OpenOffice 1.0 on your corporate machine. Set it to save in Microsoft file formats by default (I know, but bear with me). Use it to create, read and write Microsoft Office files for a couple of months. Invite your coworkers to use it. See if they even notice that it's not Microsoft Office. Document everything you do with it.
When you have a big healthy list of Microsoft format files that you've touched with it, confront your IS department and demand to know why they are wasting money on Microsoft Office. Tell them that you've already removed it from your machine (that's a $300 saving to the company right there) with - demonstrably - no effect on your or anyone else's productivity. CC people in accounting or cost control. Invite them to try it, to inspect the files (using Microsoft Office, naturally) and to ask your coworkers what they think of it. Request a specific answer about why it can't be used across the enterprise, or at least trialled on a larger scale, in parallel with the existing Microsoft Office if need be. If they bitch that it's unsupported, suggest that they pay for StarOffice. If they whine that it's not guaranteed to create usable Microsoft binary format files, point out that it is creating them, and that Microsoft Office doesn't guarantee it either!
That's step 1, and it's a big step: get your company using Star/OpenOffice. Don't even bring up the issue of file formats until you've achieved this (I made that mistake). This might take years. It might never happen, because your IS guys are idiots or cowards working on the "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM/Microsoft" principle. But try for it.
Once you've got everyone using Star/OpenOffice then you can launch stage two. Switch to creating documents in the default XML format. Any Microsoft binary format documents that you touch as part of your normal work should be saved as XML. Make a nice big list of all the documents that you've changed, because (this is the good bit) nobody else should even notice. Then after a few months, back you go to IS with your list, and demand to know why everyone else is still using Microsoft binary formats as the default. At this point there simply no reason to stick with them. Point out that a default Star/OpenOffice document (zipped XML) is significantly smaller than the Microsoft binary equivelant, which should keep the beancounters happy. And that should they ever go back to a proprietary suite (gods forbid) that it's far easier to convert from XML to anything than from Microsoft binaries to anything.
It will be a long and painful process, but OpenOffice 1.0 and StarOffice 6.0 have made it possible to start it now. If you haven't tried these products, do so now. It's your first step into a larger universe. ;-)
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