Comments on: Microsoft Blocks Older File Formats

By: Dunc

Dunc — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:47:14 +0000

I guess this is a desperate last ditch attempt to provide a compelling reason to upgrade… I still reckon Word has been going downhill ever since ’97.

By: greg laden

greg laden — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:44:06 +0000

John: I know what you mean.I used to have a list of people like that. Can’t lay my hands on the list anymore, though, it was stored in an early Microsoft Access database. There is no modern software that will read that format anymore…

By: John S. Wilkins

John S. Wilkins — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:27:57 +0000

I can’t imagine why those who might possibly want their data to be accessible in 50 years might prefer Open Document as a format over Word’s…

By: Rob Knop

Rob Knop — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:30:12 +0000

I remember years ago the Gutenberg project used to have a nice position paper on why they required everything to be in just ASCII — because it was the only format that they had any faith might still be readable in 10, 20, 40, or 80 years. Meanwhile, everybody is wondering why you don’t just use Word, or RTF…. Well, even though people never seemed to take the “I’m on Linux, I can’t fully read those formats” objection seriously, they ought to take *this* seriously.

By: llewelly

llewelly — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:30:12 +0000

If the source for the code that reads your data is not open, those who control that source can hold your data for ransom.

By: student_b

student_b — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:51:04 +0000

Oh, but the market doesn’t produce any monopolies and anyway, it wouldn’t be abused…Or so I heard.