the tobacco monopoly Microsoft
For this topic I was inspired by a lecture by Paul Attivissimo .
Who uses a computer knows what it is' a software program that displays pictures and movies, a program that plays digital music, a program that allows us to read and write electronic documents, etc..
If we do not have more 'of that software, we can not simply more' to read our data: the practical point of view and 'do not exactly like them more'.
It 'clear that in these conditions there is a' third party 'which is positioned between us and our data: the companies' software. If you can convince the user to use software that writes to a format which has technically (and legally), only one company '(something like the form "owner"), the company' will have 'total control of the user and its data. Can 'decide what to get paid for the software, the only, only software that can read that format, knowing that the user has no choice.
one I just described and ' exactly the current situation of information technology. We have three main formats (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) that dominate the market and which are all owned by 'one company' (Microsoft). Secrets are not trained in the strict sense: their specifications are theoretically available, but in practice no one can 'read,' cause subject to confidentiality agreements and the condition not to use the knowledge gained from the specifications to create a competing product. The result is 'that there are many competing programs that read more' or less well these formats, but no one who reads them perfectly .
policy and Microsoft 's always been to develop formats that are not public (more Examples: WMA, WMV) and disseminate them to the maximum using monopolar technique (for example, using the operating system preinstalled on new computers) in order to further strengthen the monopoly.
The average user might say "Never mind, we all have Word, Excel and Powerpoint (perhaps hacked?), However there are free screen readers (for use only on Windows, but ') by Microsoft for these formats, for where and what 'the problem? "
Unfortunately, the problem there, 'and it' great .
This feeds a vicious circle: everyone uses Word, Excel and Powerpoint, then in order to exchange data with the world must have Office (purchased or obtained a pirated copy). And to read them, will 'always need to have Office, there is no' choice. Because of this', companies spend millions of euro in licenses, but when this money could be used in a more 'profitable, this money goes directly to Microsoft, companies' non-European (which has some financial problems) when in fact could be used for example to make real development (create truly innovative products and performance).
The world of computing and 'too important to remain in the hands of a single subject. In reality, a '"normal" there should be a public form, to facilitate the widest possible exchange of documents, without forcing anyone to buy the software. The competition is therefore based on the features' and the efficiency of software, and not cowardly, the secrecy of the formats.
Here is an example.
A company that receives a potential customer specifications in a document in a proprietary format. What do you do? if the answer please can 'convert the document in the format XY' cause otherwise you can not respond to the offer?
a friend of mine recently received a request for tender, and the response was required in DOC and XLS. What are you doing? Use OpenOffice? and if the fonts will be inaccurate? and if the tables will be inaccurate? The response of his head and 'was categorical, get a PC with Windows and Office and draft all i documenti con quello.
L'alternativa esiste, ed i vantaggi del software aperto (GNU/Linux principalmente) sono ormai evidenti: ma allora come mai il software chiuso rimane dominante? Perche' la vera battaglia si combatte sull'uso pratico. Mostrate Linux ad un utente medio e dira' "Bello! Ma riesce a leggere i miei fogli Excel?". L'unica soluzione e' adottare metodi di lavoro che consentano di fare a meno dei formati chiusi attualmente dominanti. Non e' semplice, ma visti i problemi comportati dalla situazione attuale non credo che ci sia molta scelta.
E' un vero e proprio obbligo morale , e' per tutte queste ragioni che e' indispensabile adottare formati pubblici, supportati da piu' di una societa' Software and preferably defined by international standards and not hypothetical industrial de facto standard. " A good example of 'the PDF format, anyone can' write a software that will create and read PDF files, for any platform.
And 'the only way to ensure that in future we will be able to read our own data without being submissive to the will of a society' monopoly, and without requiring the same sentence every time our children will want to look at our photos, or read our document.
E 'even more' a moral duty, in particular, those to whom we entrust our information: the government, which must ensure that they can be read in twenty, thirty, a hundred years the documents elettronici scritti oggi. E' una garanzia che soltanto un formato pubblico puo' dare.
E' una scelta da fare subito, a prezzo di qualche sacrificio, per non trovarci poi prigionieri di una gabbia che noi stessi abbiamo contribuito a creare.
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