Re: Proprietary Software term

[Urs Liska]

Am 23. August 2018 22:27:33 MESZ schrieb Ben <address@hidden>:
>On 8/23/2018 4:21 PM, David Wright wrote:
>> On Sat 18 Aug 2018 at 22:18:51 (+0200), David Kastrup wrote:
>>> David Wright <address@hidden> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Sat 18 Aug 2018 at 19:55:01 (+0100), Wols Lists wrote:
>>>>> 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.
>>>> "Undocumented proprietary format" doesn't express the intent which
>>>> "lock-in" does. As David pointed out, patents can be used to
>protect
>>>> a proprietary format, only I don't think that, for example, the
>exFAT
>>>> filesystem is, in his words, a "strange case".
>>> A filesystem is not a file format.
>>
>> Urs mentions encryption being used by CodaMusic (I've never heard
>> of them) and that clearly shows an intention of lock-in. OTOH Wols
>> doesn't lay out here the evidence of the reported intent of Word's
>> changes. (Actually, I thought it was an open format nowadays.)
>>
>
>Coda Music was the original company re: Finale, way back in the day 
>before it was sold and became MakeMusic eventually.

I was indeed referring to Finale. At some point (around Finale 2014 or so) the 
company was purchased by an investment company, and one of the first decisions 
was to create an encrypted file format. AFAIK this decision has been reversed 
by now.