Warning of data ticking time bomb
,----[ Quote ]
| The growing problem of accessing old digital file formats is a "ticking
| time bomb", the chief executive of the UK National Archives has warned.
|
| Natalie Ceeney said society faced the possibility of "losing years of
| critical knowledge" because modern PCs could not always open old file
| formats.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6265976.stm
No source code, no specs, incompatibilities that are intended to force
upgrades...
That is why everyone must protest against OOXML and the likes of it, including
Windows and particularly DRM.
Related:
British Library calls for digital copyright action
,----[ Quote ]
| In a manifesto released on Monday at the Labor Party Conference
| in Manchester, the United Kingdom's national library warned that the
| country's traditional copyright law needs to be extended to fully
| recognize digital content.
|
| "Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize
| the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass,"
| Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, told ZDNet
| UK.
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http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6119043.html
Publish And Perish
,----[ Quote ]
| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
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http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
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