PDF, The Waste Land, and Monica's Blue Dress
,----[ Quote ]
| Suppose you are in an ODF editor and you have a "Save for archiving..."
| option that would save your ODF document as normal, but also generate a PDF
| version of it and store it in the zip archive along with ODF's XML streams.
| Then digitally sign the archive along with a time stamp to make it
| tamper-proof. You would need to define some additional access conventions,
| but you could end up with a single document that could be loaded in an ODF
| editor (in read-only mode) to allow examination of the details of spreadsheet
| formulas, etc., as well as loaded in a PDF reader to show exactly how it was
| formated.
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/11/pdf-waste-land-and-monicas-blue-dress.html
The Guest Perspective: Data for the Next Generations
,----[ Quote ]
| These archives have proven their value -- for example, scientists are still
| using data archives from the Voyager missions of the 1970s. The concept of
| archiving is simple, but to do it right, there is much to be considered.
|
| [...]
|
| Preserving data for the future is a challenge for everyone. Many of us have
| old floppy disks containing documents we'd like to be able to use at some
| point, but what will happen when we try to load those documents in 2010,
| especially if some of files were written with programs from 1995?
`----
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/overview/piPerspectives/piPerspective_11_7_2007.php
Only a corrupted or stupid group would accept OOXML for archiving and fall for
this scam (see UK National Archives below because it's run by Microsoft
employee).
Related:
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.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6265976.stm
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.
`----
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.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
[OOXML:] e to the power of hype
,----[ Quote ]
| Exponential growth is quite a claim. But what is the evidence? Microsoft
| provides this chart further down on the page, showing the growth in
| their "community":
`----
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2007/08/e-to-power-of-hype.html
|
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