9 Mar
2012
9 Mar
'12
12:18 p.m.
Closed file formats are indeed evil; only the
clueless would disagree
with that. But the important part of my point is: Aren't floppy disks
which have no reasonable way of being read, which is the exact purpose
of the product, the very epitome of a "closed file format"?!
No, I don't think they are. It's the difference between a genuinely
difficult problem (reading an undocumented floppy disk) and one that's
artificially difficulty (a file format that's 'closed' for legal reasons).
In any case, I don't think this is a good jsutificatio nfor a closed
image file format. The idea of preservation it ot make the data easier to
read/interpret/archive, not to keep the problem at the same level.
-tony