peter hollings wrote:
I agree that the critical issue is "public access to document formats". It doesn't matter that the Word format is technically inelegant, "bloated," etc.; the fact that so many people use it and have saved their documents exclusively in this format creates a widespread dependency.
Very well put.
Microsoft's EULA going back to at least Office 97 contains a clause prohibiting "reverse engineering". Suppose this were construed to prohibit anyone from accessing the contents of (or creating) a Word "doc" file by any means other than Microsoft-supplied software?
I'll attempt to partially answer this question: I don't think that this threat is very real on a retroactive basis - - there are just too many converters in place and Microsoft would have to go against end users.
I expect (is it wishful thinking?) that it would be very hard for Microsoft to act against converters from Word to other formats, considering that Word itself provides converters *from* other formats.
But should a new "doc" format be developed, Microsoft would then be in a position to sue the developers of any software capable of reading (or creating) files in the new format.
But already Microsoft has some problems with non-acceptance of its newer .doc formats. Word 97 was such a success that it's to a great extent already frozen the format. Even for loyal Microsoft customers, the gains in moving from Word 97 to later versions are pretty marginal. So were the Feds to specify Word 97 as a standard and public format, required for Federal procurements, Linux would then become a far more potent contender in the Federal marketplace and the desktop marketplace in general. Ironic but true. Paul