National Archive File Format Time Bomb

geordie_loz writes "The BBC is reporting that the UK National Archive is warning of old formats being a 'ticking time-bomb' where data is going to be lost because of incompatibility in newer versions of software, and software not existing at all. More surprisingly, Microsoft has offered a solution via the OOXML format."

Comments

Idiots

[suv4x4]

The BBC is reporting that the UK National Archive is warning of old formats being a 'ticking time-bomb' where data is going to be lost because of incompatibility in newer versions of software, and software not existing at all. More surprisingly, Microsoft has offered a solution via the OOXML format.

There are so many idiots in this state of the affairs:

1. the idiots which decided to build huge archive with undocumented proprietary format
2. idiots which believe they can't find even a single copy of the software they need
3. idiots who didn't store a single copy of the software that reads the format, together with the archive (not very far from obvious, is it).
4. idiots who want to convince other idiots that OOXML is an open format (versus straight XML serialization of the whatever binary DOC was in the source code base at the time in MS)

Re:Idiots

[CastrTroy]

I believe points 2 and 3 can be lumped into 1 format. It's like creating backup tapes, and then throwing out the tape reader. Who thinks these systems up?

Re:Idiots

[tolan-b]

It's not an archive of files in a single format, it's an archive of files in general, many formats, depending on which format the file was originally in.

The system wasn't thought up any more than a library thinks up all the books it contains.

surprise?

[Tom]

What's surprising about that? Someone in MS Spin Control and Public Relations is worth his salary. The story could have exploded into an "avoid MS products if you want your data accessible some years down the road" fiasco (we all know that MS is the worst offender when it comes to changing the document formats, usually undocumented). Instead, it was turned into another push for their next format.

Brilliant.

"What, the shit I sold you yesterday stinks? Try this new shit, it's great and it has none of the problems of the old one."

That's what you hire PR people for.

How about some *helpful* suggestions

[FreudianNightmare]

Rather than bitching about Microsoft making an offer of 'help' which is just thinly disguised marketing (I mean, come on, par for the course no?), could we get a discussion about real solutions? I know MS bashing is fun, but come on, we do it on just about every other thread... lets have a day off.

To kick things off here's one:

Keep EVERYTHING in the simplest possible format. ASCII would seem sensible, since its the content we care about, not the formatting. (although that wouldn't help our Asiatic brethren much). Then Keep decent records of HOW you can read that format. With examples of the software and hardware. do this bit on PAPER. V. Tough Paper (or rock, or plastic or whatever). Update the explanations every other year, to put it in language the next gen will understand. Maybe also have instructions on how to translate the simple format to less simple things.

I guess, basically, its a case of KISS and then *provide a persistent and regularly updated 'Rosetta Stone'* for latecomers to work from.

As a side branch, this kind of reminds me of discussions I read about a while back of how to warn future generations about Nuclear Waste dumps (y'know, the really nasty stuff with half-lives in the thousands of years range). I don't think anyone ever came up with a decent answer....