"Software Choice"

[Gregory J. Neumann]

http://www.softwarechoice.org/
http://sincerechoice.org/

Two very interesting sites.  I wish the latter was more polished, but then 
again, it's not Microsoft funded.  All this arose out of Peru's pending 
legislation mandating that all gov't systems and formats be open source to 
avoid the pitfalls of having public information locked in proprietary formats.  
Makes sense to me.  The last thing I want is to see "This site only 
accessible with Microsoft Internet Explorer" on the Library of Congress site!  

/begin rant
Patents on file formats is, IMHO, much akin to patents on paper and ink.  
It'd sure be a less literate world if anyone who put pen to paper had to pay 
a licensing fee for it.  Because neither paper or ink are licensed, the only 
cost you pay is for the instruments and materials themselves.  I happen to 
really like my Cross mechanical pencil, but a MUCH cheaper one will do the 
job.  I have free choice where quality, "feel", color and style are the 
important factors, not that I must use a genuine "brand X" item to be able to 
write and communicate.  What made literacy commonplace was the 
commonality of paper.  While parchment was the primary format for writing, 
books were very expensive and rare, because parchment is much more 
difficult and expensive to produce.  If we end up locked in a "parchment" file 
format owned by one company, or a consortium of companies, we will all 
end up losing.  The competition should be in the software to read the 
completely open formats.
/end rant

-Greg