Open Format Debate

I want to talk about this some more, but I'm afraid it's not worth our time. What does a transition to an open patent-free format really mean? What does it mean that ooXML is free to use?

It means that the developers of an application won't pay any royalties for their application's data structures. It means that the people who have invested so much time to figure out what is the best way to store a particular document as data will not be compensated for their attention to detail.

This could be a positive thing, or it could be a negative thing. Surely if formats are not designed with the best interests of their data in mind, the users will not be as happy with the quality and arrangement of their data, or the application developers will have to spend more time making the formats fit the typical data of their application users.

It means: software as a subscription (these developers have got to eat), or software development as slave labor or software as idols to be worshiped. (Or, sure, you can bet the developers will derive enough revenue from reselling and using their own software to repay their investment into the works).

What did I just say? Those paragraphs are a mess.