Proprietary format "lock in"

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 4569

Posted by talazem
2005-11-09 15:50:28

In my personal ongoing saga for the ideal reading/research note database, and based on the good advice of many on here, particularly Daly, i have come to find that InfoHandler and ADM 3 seem to hold the most potential (and, perhaps, InfoSelect, but i don’t know if i’m willing to plunk down $250 just to try software).

However, one thing that has gotten me thinking, is what will happen to years and years of my research data, if i place all my notes and data in a piece of software that is proprietary, and one day the company up and disappears. It seems many of these note PIM’s and outlining programs - such a ADM, InfoHandler, Zoot, and Brainstorm - are basically one-man (or, in the case of Brainstorm, two-man) shows.

As such, when the developer gets bored, moves on to something else, passes away prematurely, etc. etc., there goes all support, and as such, *future portability* of the information into next generation software and operating systems.

Thus, the proprietary format of IH and ADM especially (and other textual databases) frightens me, though, as a layman end-user of software, i don’t know how much i should rightly be frightened.

Also, the lack of ability for one to use desktop or universal searching through these databases, such as that provided by dekstop search engines like DTsearch and others, also seems to be a bit of a long-term worry, as convergence and interoperability increase over time, and as hard drives get bigger and bigger, and more and more complicated with different types of file types, extensions, and formats. Why shouldn’t we be able to use independent search engines such as DTsearch that have a degree of fuzzy, Boolean or Artifical Intelligence (AI) search capabilities, over a huge database of notes, thoughts, writings, and articles? Isn’t all that prevents this the proprietary formats of the software?

In order to preserve one’s hard work and years of writings and notes, what is most important to look for: that a piece of software save itself in xml? that it be possible to export to xml? that it save it rich text file (.rtf), or normal text file (.txt)? What makes one any safer than the other, in terms of long-term backup and carrying over into future os’s (and perhaps even a switch to another OS, such as Mac OSX, etc.)?

Software developers reading this: is it not possible (and i ask this sincerely, not rhetorically) for you to use open standards saving formats such as xml instead of binary proprietary modes?

Sorry for the meandering nature of this post, but i am trying to make up my mind - once and for all - on which software i want to use for long-term note-taking and note storage, such as i’ll need in my academic research. I’m half tempted to just switch to Mac OSX, since i’ve heard and seen so many beautiful things in the world of DevonThink (especially with its Artificial Intelligence recommendation of related notes), and the myriad outliners available there. Then again, i’ve already invested so much time, money and effort into Windows based applications over the years, that i fear that my desire to jump ship is not just a mutation of what some here call “CRIMP”. :-)

Anyhow…any comments on the proprietary lock in issue, and how best to get around it, or what software is already looking ahead and using open standards such as xml, would be greatly appreciated.

Talal

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