Re: 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: 4581

Posted by ureadit
2005-11-11 14:06:35

Here is a less egregious, but nevertheless aggravating and time consuming, variant of “lock in.” I am speaking, in particular, of Maple Pro (http://www.crystaloffice.com), although other programs may have had the same problems.

1. Some time ago, Maple developers decided to change file format and provided a separate program for changing the old format to the new—file-by-file.

2. With a later revision of the Maple program, I had to contact the developer to learn how to make my files readable in the newer version. They told me of a couple of extra steps I had to do, again separately for each file.

3. Recently another revision of Maple caused a reprise of what I went through in item 2, except this time even more steps and time were required.

I’ve decided to junk Maple and have spent considerable time moving all my Maple files, file note-by-file note to another PIM.

On a related topic, as GrandView diehards know, as new Windows versions appear, it becomes increasing difficult to use older programs.

-sc

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