

BSA pressuring the European Commission to remove support for Open Standards - yanw
http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/bsa-letter-analysis.html.en

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zdw
Open standards = the ability to compete.

The reason Microsoft is in the market ownership position it's in is that it
owns two thing:

\- The only dependable way to run Win32 ABI applications

\- The MS Office formats (.doc/.xls) and even the new Office OpenXML formats
(.docx/.xlsx) which are non-validating XML wrappers around their proprietary
binary data blobs.

While we do have Wine/OpenOffice that can do a percentage of these job, people
get roped into Windows/Office because they need one app, aren't aware of
alternatives, don't want an interoperability hassle, and thus the cycle
becomes self perpetuating.

Compare/contrast with other more open formats like HTML, PDF, etc. and the
innovation and flexibility surrounding them.

Supporting closed formats = giving one company a cash cow.

Supporting open formats = supporting innovation and competition.

Say what you want about the GPL and other licensing - open formats are the
only sure-fire way to ensure open marketplaces.

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kiba
BSA is smart. It's targeting the actual competitors, not the pirates.

The record labels are mostly targeting the pirates, not competitors. They are
stupid.

However, it does not bodes well for the BSA to act smart when lobbying. I wish
they tighten their grip on pirates while leaving open source alone. That would
spell death for the BSA.

