Your Data, Their Format

Just the other day, I finally got sick of the way the computing industry was treating me and decided to "opt-out" of the market.

You didn't think that was possible, did you? Corporations like Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe don't like to talk about it much, but it turns out that you can, and you don't even have to give up computing to do it. All you really have to do is install Linux on the computer you already have, and you can say goodbye to forced hardware-and-software upgrades, top-secret file-formats that prevent you from using a different application on your work, and encrypted songs, videos, and documents that you can only look at on the few devices that they'll "authorize" for you, if you follow instructions very, very carefully, and if the vendor doesn't go out of business, or switch something around on you, first.

That last bit was what made me take the plunge. I lost the use of songs I had purchased from an on-line music vendor when it decided to change its encryption scheme. I found out about its new way of "managing digital rights" when I couldn't listen to my music anymore. Complaining to the company didn't help. Its employees just told me that I needed to install a new version of their software, which would require a new version of my operating system, which, in turn, would require a newer version of my computer. Then, they'd be happy to "authorize" that machine to play those songs, using their new encryption scheme. My computer is about three years old, and, surprise, the same corporation that makes it also makes my operating system and its digital-music software.

So, I asked for my money back. I wasn't being unreasonable; I only wanted the money I had spent on the music they took from me, not the money I spent on a computer that's now incompatible with their on-line music store.

I don't think I'm going to get it, though. After all, the computing industry didn't feel the need to compensate me when I lost my writing after I skipped a couple "upgrades" of my word-processor, only to discover that the version I finally did end up re-buying no longer "supported" its old file-format. And, come to think of it, no one in the computing industry has ever offered to refund the money I spent on applications that won't run after I upgrade my OS. I've replaced three computers, and who knows how many applications, in the same amount of time that I've had the same car, the same TV, and the same stereo system. No doubt, this makes computing companies think that they're really very, very clever, but, chances are, I will buy another car, another TV, and another stereo, while I won't buy a new computer or new software again. I hope they invested the money I gave them in something other than those intellectual-property lawsuits that are choking our court system, because they aren't getting any more money from me.

This is, I suspect, why companies like Microsoft call Linux "un-American" and "a cancer." Corporations don't like sharing or playing nice, and that's exactly what Linux and the open-source community do. They share their software with everyone, even corporations, and you can share your work with anyone too, not just those people who are using the same version of the same software that you're using. There's no such thing as digital-restrictions management on a Linux box, and it won't save anything to a proprietary file format unless you tell it to. For instance, this essay can be read, exactly as I formatted it, on any version of any word processor. That's what open formats, protocols, and codecs can do, and that's why the computing industry avoids them. They just don't give them a way to hold your data hostage and force you to upgrade; and that, they think, is horrible.

At least, they think it's horrible until a government agency starts investigating their practices. Microsoft added the open rich-text format to their word processing programs (if you can find it) when it looked like they were going to lose the anti-trust suit federal regulators brought against them, and now they say they're adding the open-document format to their productivity applications after a governor banned the use of MS Office in state agencies because Microsoft's file-format shenanigans were preventing them from reading each other's documents without constantly upgrading their software and converting their files. Apple recently tried to shift the blame for its encrypted music format to the recording industry after European-Union regulators started investigating its practices, while Microsoft now says it thinks that digital-restrictions management has become too complex. But if you really want to see complicated, just try to play some sound or video files on your brand-new Vista operating system (which, of course, requires a brand-new computer). Naturally, you shouldn't expect it to work very well even after you've figured out what all those forms and messages about "migrating licenses" and auto-magically "protecting content" that no one ever intended to lock-up is all about.

Fortunately, we do have a choice about these sort of things, but it's not one that the computing industry approves of, or even wants us to know about. It's called open-source software, and it's made by hobbyists who don't think that sharing is "a cancer." Linux, which is part of the open-source community, has had a bad reputation for not being "user-friendly," but I can't see why. It works, it doesn't require you to use a brand-new computer, and it doesn't try to lock-up your data in secret formats and encrypted codecs. That's a lot more user-friendly than commercial software, and it's what I'll be using from now on.