A Layman’s Thoughts on Freedom of Information and Open File

Formats
By Tony Baldwin
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 every time 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 dissemination 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 thereof 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 control 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. Such a
company could extort whatever price they wish for your use of their product and file formats. Such a
company could refuse you license to use their product and their file formats if they disagree with or
dislike the information you wish to share, even.
This is pretty well the case when speaking of the current situation in reference to various industries
where certain proprietary software vendors have cornered the market, often by untoward means and
with inferior products, and stifled the people’s right to choice. This is why you spend $300 on
Microsoft Windows, and $500 on Microsoft Office, and have to pay again for them to fix these inferior
software products when they fail on you. This is why translators are almost unanimously being forced
to use SDL’s Trados and Tag Editor. I assume the situation is similar on other industries
(graphics/publishing, etc.) Choice is stifled when a vendor controls a market.
This is why document formats such as:
Microsoft’s .doc, .wmp or OOXML,
SDL’s .ttx,
Thomson’s mp3,
and other proprietary formats, specific to one software vendor, are harmful, and to be not only avoided,
but completely eschewed in favor of open document formats created according to open standards, such
as .odf, .tmx, .xliff, .xml, .html, and .ogg.
Understand, I am in no way advocating an end to intellectual property rights. Certainly, those who
create works of art, software, literature, music, etc., have a right to their creations.
What I am advocating is free access to information and the means of manipulating and conveying
information.
What are open standards?
From Free Software Foundation, Europe:

Definition
An Open Standard refers to a format or protocol that is

1. subject to full public assessment and use without

constraints in a manner equally available to all parties;
2. without any components or extensions that have dependencies
on formats or protocols that do not meet the definition of an
Open Standard themselves;
3. free from legal or technical clauses that limit its
utilization by any party or in any business model;
4. managed and further developed independently of any single
vendor in a process open to the equal participation of
competitors and third parties;
5. available in multiple complete implementations by competing
vendors, or as a complete implementation equally available to
all parties.

Relevant links:
• The FREE SoftwareFoundation
• The OpenDocument Format Alliance
• OpenOasis
• OpenDocument XML
• FSF ODF Campaign
• No Word Attachments
• Document Freedom Day

more articles by Tony Baldwin