“An open format is one that is platform independent, machine readable, and made available to the public without restrictions that would impede the re-use of that information”.
Anyway, saying that a format is not open because of restrictions on its use is in my opinion (some what) equal to saying that something is not FOSS because of the license they use. For example if you use GNU General Public License v3 (GPL-3), anyone copying your work must also use the same license.
It would not be an open format if I had to pay for its use. It would be open if I can use it without cost but have to provide what I use it for with the same restrictions.
Open as far as I know is not defined by law anywhere, it will be up to opinion in the end. Having a different opinion and thus having a different definition of a word makes communications more difficult, so agreeing on the meaning is preferred.
open data format is a format that has publicly available specification and anyone can use it, as opposed to formats whose specification is not publicly available, the only way to use them is to reverse engineer them, which is something their author (for example, but not only, microsoft) actively tries to prevent by constantly making undocumented changes, in an attempt to lock the users into some private software ecosystem.
purpose of open data format is that anyone can share and exchange data, no matter what apps they decide to use, so trying to prevent anyone to use it would be directly counterproductive.
so for example i use libreoffice, you use ms word, and we can exchange the data files and they look as intended on the other person’s computer, because microsoft is free to read and write .odt files, their documentation is publicly available and no one asks microsoft to start giving out ms word for free or sod off. which was not the case when people had to reverse engineer structure of the .doc file.
It still wouldn’t be an open format.
TIL there are definitions for what constitutes an open format, at least in the US (US government).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_file_format
Anyway, saying that a format is not open because of restrictions on its use is in my opinion (some what) equal to saying that something is not FOSS because of the license they use. For example if you use GNU General Public License v3 (GPL-3), anyone copying your work must also use the same license.
It would not be an open format if I had to pay for its use. It would be open if I can use it without cost but have to provide what I use it for with the same restrictions.
Open as far as I know is not defined by law anywhere, it will be up to opinion in the end. Having a different opinion and thus having a different definition of a word makes communications more difficult, so agreeing on the meaning is preferred.
What do you think?
no, it will not.
open data format is a format that has publicly available specification and anyone can use it, as opposed to formats whose specification is not publicly available, the only way to use them is to reverse engineer them, which is something their author (for example, but not only, microsoft) actively tries to prevent by constantly making undocumented changes, in an attempt to lock the users into some private software ecosystem.
purpose of open data format is that anyone can share and exchange data, no matter what apps they decide to use, so trying to prevent anyone to use it would be directly counterproductive.
so for example i use libreoffice, you use ms word, and we can exchange the data files and they look as intended on the other person’s computer, because microsoft is free to read and write .odt files, their documentation is publicly available and no one asks microsoft to start giving out ms word for free or sod off. which was not the case when people had to reverse engineer structure of the .doc file.