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Why IP owners should worry]]]]
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 20:26:23 -0500
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [IP] Why IP owners should worry]]] Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 19:45:59 -0500 From: Jordan Pollack <pollack () cs brandeis edu> To: dave () farber net References: <438622B7.5090105 () farber net>It it a sad fact of the software industry that maximizing shareholder value drives companies towards making locked up formats rather than standards which could be eventually approved by Underwriters Lab or the FCC.
The "competitive upgrade" specifically took advantage of companies which didn't encrypt their formats; their files could be sucked into a competitors release, but not vice versa.
Imagine a world in which Word, Wordperfect, Wordstar, Wordpro and Emacs all edited the same standard word processing format. Imagine if all Html editors, from Pagemill to Frontpage to Trellix to Dreamweaver could interoperate, and all CAD programs could agree on a 3d representational format. Then instead of a single or serial Monopoly in each application area, we would have oligarchies like other industries, that might continually compete to improve the user interfaces and efficiencies, instead of how to lock customers into upgrades and out of their own data.
MA is right to move to open documents, or to force an opening of MSFT office.
Jordan -- Professor Jordan B. Pollack Dynamic & Evolution Machine Org Computer Science Department FaxPhone/Lab: 781-736-2713/3366 MS018, Brandeis University http://www.demo.cs.brandeis.edu Waltham Massachusetts 02454 e-mail: pollack () cs brandeis edu ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- Why IP owners should worry]]]] Dave Farber (Nov 24)