Category Archives: Preservation

I don’t think the Enterprise has really woken up to DRM yet

By Simon Coles | Published: September 13, 2006
DRM is beginning to make an entrance into the Enterprise, and whilst at one level the technologies sound attractive I’m not sure the longer term, deeper consequences are all that palatable. I do wonder what the lawyers will think (because a Judge is unlikely to be impressed by arbitrary restrictions imposed by some DRM system) [...]
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Review of Massachusetts’s file format decision

By Simon Coles | Published: November 11, 2005
Microsoft are fighting hard against the Massachusetts decision to mandate the Open Document file format in preference for their own proprietary “Open” XML based formats, and this is providing us all with a great education into Open File Formats in genetal. Firstly only did Massachusetts make their decision in a very public way (so we [...]
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Yet more writing on the wall for proprietary formats

By Simon Coles | Published: September 13, 2005
So after a bit of meandering, the State of Massachusetts is backing the OpenDocument standard as the standard format for office applications. At one level this is just another example of how customers are revolting against proprietary file formats (which lock them into the vendor) and demanding Open, vendor-neutral formats. But MA’s decision is a [...]
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Article on Open Data formats etc.

By Simon Coles | Published: July 27, 2005
I am extensively quoted in this article in Scientific & Computing World on the importance of Open Data formats.
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Norway

By Simon Coles | Published: July 24, 2005
In the latest of a number of moves by governments to remove the stranglehold that proprietary file formats have on their infrastructure, the Norwegian Minister of Modernization has said “Proprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and government”. How long will it be before industry also wakes up to the problem? [...]
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