Consider, for a moment, where the world might be now, if, say, whoever first developed a means of written communication, written language, had copyrighted, this means of communication. I'd like to consider not only copyrighting his particular writing system, but, even more generally, the concept of symbolically representing reality in a written/graphical form.
Had the inventor of writing, if you will, demanded his rights in terms of the use of such a system, of course, anyone that wrote anything would owe him for use of this intellectual property.
Thus, he would have a right to demand his fee for the conveyance of any information, of any nature, in a written form. This would mean, he would have control over any written communication. He would be able to control what information could be conveyed
in writing, who could have access to that information, and, of course, he could demand payment for any and everytime 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 opinion and knowledge. I think we can agree that such control centralized in the hands of
one person would be A BAD THING.
This individual could control religious thought, philosophy, the semination of scientific knowledge, etc., ad infinitum.
Now, consider even if Gutenburg had patented and copyrighted the printing press, and all printing of any matter would, again, be his to control. Or perhaps, say one person controlled all rights to the use of paper (papyrus), when it was invented, and, thus, could control any use there of and any matter that was printed or written on paper, etc. Control over any such process or media would put untold power in the hands of the individual possessing such power. I think we can agree that such control centralized in one person (or one company) would be A BAD THING.
Freedom of information, freedom of expression and freedom to learn are, and I believe this is a widely enough held notion that nobody will argue the contrary, ESSENTIAL freedoms.
Freedoms necessary to the 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 document formats are to be avoided. This is why we should not allow specific software vendors to monopolize the dispersion of information by allowing their proprietary document formats to become standard to any industry. Allowing them such control allows them control over that industry. They will have the ability to stifle choice of software use and will have control over the publication of knowledge.
In today's digital, information age, if one individual or one company has control of the file formats in which information may be shared, or if one company or individual controls all software capable of accessing information in said formats, that individual or company has control of all information.
This is why document formats such as Microsoft's .doc or OOXML, SDL's .ttx, .mp3, .wmp and other formats that are proprietary, and specific to one software vendor, are harmful, and to be not only avoided, but completely eschewed in favor of open document formats, such as .odf, and .ogg.
relevant links:
ODF Alliance
Oasis Open
Open Document XML
ODF at FSF
No Word Attachments
No comments:
Post a Comment