Digital Babel

[unixronin]

We're all packed and ready to head off to Maryland for Thanksgiving, and I'm sitting here waiting for my parents to email me a crucial form for our Medicaid recertification that was due YESTERDAY in a file format that we can actually use.  Why does every closed-source software vendor in the WORLD have to have their own friggin' proprietary file formats for common data like scanned images?  Come the hell ON, people, what's the point of having standards if NOBODY WILL FRELLING USE THEM?!?!?

Comments

[jenkitty.livejournal.com]

Well, duh. If you make up your own standard, and don't tell anyone what it is, then they have no choice but to use your stuff and you can charge them beacoup bucks for it. Haven't you been paying attention? :)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that this not only contributes to product lock-in, but the so-called OS they're based on....

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, realistically, I know that. And the cretins can't or won't grasp that by locking your own customers in, you're also locking everyone else out, and guaranteeing that if another company's product achieves market dominance, yours is dead because you can't inter-operate with it.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

if another company's product achieves market dominance, yours is dead because you can't inter-operate with it.

And given what you've just said, this is bad how? *evil grin*

[persimmon.livejournal.com]

hey there -

have a safe journey and a wonderful Thanksgiving!

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Arrived safely. Got here around about 22:30. Just going to bed now that I've checked e-mail and LJ.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

What cymrullewes said. Trip was basically uneventful except for the Dread Pirate Bignum spending most of it in a thoroughly poisonous mood, screaming and throwing things at people.

[persimmon.livejournal.com]

Sounds as if Dread Pirate Bignum could use a nap!

[pernishus.livejournal.com]

Have a safe journey to Darkover, and please give my greetings to Callahanians there, as well as to Jaelle, the organizer of the festivities. Pernicious still carries a torch for his erstwhile Vice President...

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Still not certain if we're going to Darkover or not. We've talked about it but the only thing I'm certain of is getting to Annapolis to get Ginger Altoids for dirtynumbangelboy.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

But standards are so much fun... That's why everybody makes up their own!

Some of it is reinventing the wheel. Sometimes the wheel that's being reinvented actually needs it. (.bmp, for example. It sure is a standard, but ye gods...) Most of the time it's for intentional noncompatability purposes.

Government agencies should be required to ascertain and utilise the most widely available, functional stanrdard available for anything. Preferably the most open standard, as well. (Fuck .gif!)

Plain text, compliant HTML, and .png would be a great set of tools for this sort of thing.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hasn't the Unisys patent expired now? Or is it first-few-months-of-2004 that it expires?
But yeah, PNG does a great job for pretty much anything you'd want to use either gif or JPEG for.
(Man, this HP keyboard SUCKS.)