14 DAY TRIAL // The Document Foundation has announced that the new Document Liberation Project has been started in an effort to free users from vendor lock-in of contents.
The new Document Liberation Project aims to bring developers from the open source world under a single umbrella so that they can better fight the problems caused by proprietary file formats.
“Frequently, these old files cannot be opened by any application. In fact, the users are locked out of their own content, and the most common reason for this inability to access old data is the use of proprietary file-formats that result in vendor lock-in,” said Fridrich Strba, the Document Liberation Project leader.
“Even worse, when a public administration stores documents using a proprietary or a non documented format, it unintentionally restricts access to essential information to citizens, administrations and businesses,” he added.
If this project from The Document Foundation manages to take shape in the near future, we might see some companies like Apple, Microsoft, and others trying to make their proprietary formats more open, allowing users to transition that data into open file formats.
This will not happen overnight and we know that not even ODF has been accepted. Microsoft is fighting this format at every corner, and it's likely that The Document Foundation initiative will take quite a long time.