Yes, Network Effects Are a Problem for Open Formats

As we know, lock-in is one of the biggest obstacles to moving from closed, proprietary formats, to open ones. But so far as I know, no one has tried to quantify the extent to which people cling to old formats. That makes the following piece of research useful, at least as a first stab at finding out what is really going on:

On Open Enterprise blog.

First Open Forum Academy Conference Proceedings

Last week, I mentioned that I attended the Open Forum Europe 2012 conference. Preceeding it was the first meeting of the Open Forum Academy (OFA), of which I am a member. Here's how it describes itself:

On Open Enterprise blog.

BlackBerry to Support OpenDocument Format

One of the biggest barriers to introducing new, open formats like ODF is the lock-in of platforms to Microsoft's dominant Office formats. This makes winning support for as many different environments as possible critically important, because it removes what might be an insuperable obstacle to rolling out ODF within a company.

Against that background, this apparently minor announcement could be quite significant for the uptake of ODF in enterprises....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Realising Virtual Worlds Through Openness

I mentioned Tim Berners-Lee below as an iconic figure. Philip Rosedale may not quite be there yet, but he stands a good chance of attaining that status if his vision works out. He's put together a useful summary of how that vision grew, and, more importantly, what Linden Lab is going to do to realise it more fully. Nice to see that at the heart of the strategy lies openness:

we need to keep opening SL up, as we’ve started talking about lately. This means formats, source code, partners, and more. We are working on turning our clear vision on this into more detailed plans. Virtual worlds, in their broadest form, will be more pervasive that the web, and that means that their systems will need to be open: extended and operated by many people and companies, not just us.

Steve Jobs Gets Sane on DRM

A worryingly sensible viewpoint espoused here by Steve Jobs:

Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. If the big four music companies would license Apple their music without the requirement that it be protected with a DRM, we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

In a heartbeat? The cynic in me is suspicious: if DRM were dropped, then Apple would be subject to much more direct competition. So why would Apple ever do this? Is Steve Jobs angling for a Nobel Prize for Peace, or something? (Via Wired News.)

Update: Larry Lessig makes a good point here.

CASPAR = Openness

Something called "Cultural, Artistic and Scientific knowledge for Preservation, Access and Retrieval (CASPAR)" sounds like a typical money-wasting euro gravy-train. But the central problem it aims to address - "How can digitally encoded information still be understood and used in the future when the software, systems and everyday knowledge will have changed?" - is important, and becoming more so by the day.

Over long periods of time, you cannot hope to keep every wacky proprietary data format alive by storing copies of the relevant software: you'd also need to store old operating systems, software manuals etc. The only practical solution is to use open formats. For these, the information will be accessible long after the programs that created them have gone to the great data repository in the sky.