Re: Proprietary Software term

[Wols Lists]

On 18/08/18 12:51, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Indeed, that wasn't expressed too well. What I meant is that
>> > CodaMusic's policy to use binary non-released (for some time even
>> > encrypted) file formats strongly discouraged anyone to make a program
>> > use these files.

> That's more than just lock-in.  Don't know a good expression, but that's
> more like locked-away (don't know a good expression for it) since the
> format is designed to keep the user from being able to access his own
> information (and/or that of others).  In my book, that's a no-no since
> it renders archiving worthless.
> 
Undocumented proprietary format.

I compare WordPerfect with Word ... Word's format seems to change with
almost every release, the changes being in many cases apparently to
interfere with compatibility with other programs.

While WordPerfect's format, although proprietary, was well-documented,
with defined extensibility, and a guarantee of compatibility. To the
extent that WordPerfect 6, released in 1994, is to the best of my
knowledge capable of editing and saving - WITHOUT DAMAGING IT - a file
created by the latest version. So any WordPerfect-compatible program
should be able to do the same.

Cheers,
Wol