Open Standards
Intercommunication and
file formats should follow standards that are sincerely
open for all to implement, without royalty fees or
discrimination.
Some software vendors "lock in" their customers
through a strategy of deliberate incompatibility. For
example, if they manufacture word processing software and
their product dominates a particular market, they can force
competitors out of that market simply by making sure that
no competing product interoperates with theirs. In order to
interoperate with the majority of other users, a user will
have to purchase the dominant product.
In order to have a fair market, without customer
"lock-in", file formats like those used by word processors
must be open standards. Then, the customer will have a
choice of a number of interoperating products, with various
prices, different levels of sophistication, and
differentiating features. However, each of these products
will be able to display and edit files produced by the
others.
The dominant vendors can not be expected to switch to open
standards on their own. Only strong and continued pressure
from their customers will cause them to do so. But open
standards are entirely to the customer's benefit. They help
to establish a competitive market that tends to reduce
prices and increase quality.
We support reverse-engineering for purposes of
compatibility, and oppose legislation that would restrict
it. Reverse-engineering is the only tool that competitors
can use against a vendor who is not receptive to open
standards. Products like Samba and OpenOffice benefit many
customers. The developers of those products made use of
reverse-engineering in order to make them compatible with
other products.
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