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An open format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a standards organization
Standards organization

A standards organization, standards body, standards development organization or SDO is any entity whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise maintaining standards that address the interests of a wide base of users outside the standards develo...
, which basically can be used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implementable by both proprietary
Proprietary software

Proprietary software is a term coined by advocates of the free software movement to describe computer software which is the legal property of one party....
 and free
Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
 and open source software, using the typical licenses used by each. In contrast to open formats, proprietary formats are controlled and defined by private interests.








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An open format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a standards organization
Standards organization

A standards organization, standards body, standards development organization or SDO is any entity whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise maintaining standards that address the interests of a wide base of users outside the standards develo...
, which basically can be used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implementable by both proprietary
Proprietary software

Proprietary software is a term coined by advocates of the free software movement to describe computer software which is the legal property of one party....
 and free
Free software

Free Software or software libre is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also do these things and to prevent consumer-facing hardware...
 and open source software, using the typical licenses used by each. In contrast to open formats, proprietary formats are controlled and defined by private interests.

Specific definitions


Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. is a multinational corporation vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information technology services, founded on February 24, 1982....
 defines the criteria for open formats as follows:
  • The format is based on an underlying open standard
    Open standard

    An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and various properties of how it was designed....
  • The format is developed through a publicly visible, community driven process
  • The format is affirmed and maintained by a vendor-independent standards organization
    Standards organization

    A standards organization, standards body, standards development organization or SDO is any entity whose primary activities are developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpreting, or otherwise maintaining standards that address the interests of a wide base of users outside the standards develo...
  • The format is fully documented and publicly available
  • The format does not contain proprietary extensions


State of Minnesota

The State of Minnesota
Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with just over five million residents....
 defines the criteria for open, XML-based file formats as follows:

  • The format is interoperable among diverse internal and external platforms and applications
  • The format is fully published and available royalty-free
  • The format is implemented by multiple vendors
  • The format is controlled by an open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard


Commonwealth of Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a U.S. state located in the New England region of the Northeastern United States United States. It borders Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north....
 "defines open formats as specifications for data file formats that are based on an underlying open standard, developed by an open community, affirmed and maintained by a standards body and are fully documented and publicly available."

The Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) classifies four formats as "Open Formats":
  1. OASIS Open Document Format For Office Applications (OpenDocument) v. 1.1
    OpenDocument

    The OpenDocument format is a file format for electronic office documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentation programs and word processor documents....
  2. Ecma-376 Office Open XML Formats (Open XML)
  3. Hypertext Document Format v. 4.01
    HTML

    HTML, an Acronym and initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document?by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on?and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded '...
  4. Plain Text Format
    Plain text

    In computing, plain text is a term used for an ordinary "unformatted" sequential file readable as textual material without much processing.The Character encoding has traditionally been either ASCII, one of its many derivatives such as ISO/IEC 646 etc., or sometimes EBCDIC....


The Linux Information Project

According to the The Linux Information Project, the term open format should refer to "any format that is published for anyone to read and study but which may or may not be encumbered by patents, copyrights or other restrictions on use".

Examples of open formats


Multimedia

  • JPEG 2000
    JPEG 2000

    JPEG 2000 is a wavelet-based standard. It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in the year 2000 with the intention of superseding their original discrete cosine transform-based JPEG standard ....
     – an image format standardized by ISO/IEC
  • PNG – a raster image format standardized by ISO/IEC
  • SVG
    Scalable Vector Graphics

    Scalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic ....
     – a vector image format standardized by W3C
  • VRML
    VRML

    VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-D computer graphics interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind....
    /X3D
    X3D

    X3D is the ISO standard XML-based file format for representing 3D computer graphics, the successor to the VRML . X3D features extension s to VRML , the ability to encode the scene using an XML syntax as well as the Open Inventor-like syntax of VRML97, and enhanced application programming interfaces ....
     – realtime 3D data formats standardized by ISO/IEC
  • Ogg
    Ogg

    Ogg is a free file format, open standard container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The Ogg format is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming media and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia....
    , container for Vorbis
    Vorbis

    Vorbis is a free software and open source software, Lossy compression audio codec project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and intended to serve as a replacement for MP3....
    , FLAC
    FLAC

    Free Lossless Audio Codec is a file format for lossless data compression audio data compression. During compression, FLAC does not lose quality from the audio stream, as Lossy data compression formats such as MP3, Advanced Audio Coding, and Vorbis do....
    , Speex
    Speex

    Speex is a free software speech coder that may be used on Voice over IP applications and podcasts. Speex claims to be free of any software patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD License....
     (audio formats) & Theora
    Theora

    Theora is an open and royalty-free lossy video compression technology being developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation as part of their Ogg project. Based upon On2 Technologies' VP3 codec, Theora competes with MPEG-4, Windows Media Video, and similar low-bitrate video compression schemes....
     (a video format)


Text

  • HTML
    HTML

    HTML, an Acronym and initialism of HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for Web pages. It provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document?by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, and so on?and to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded '...
    /XHTML
    XHTML

    The Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, or XHTML, is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but also conforms to XML syntax....
     – a markup language standardized by W3C
  • OpenDocument
    OpenDocument

    The OpenDocument format is a file format for electronic office documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentation programs and word processor documents....
     – a suite of office document formats standardized by OASIS and ISO/IEC
  • Office Open XML – a suite of office document formats standardized by ISO/IEC
  • PDF – a document image format standardized by ISO


Other

  • XML – a markup language standardized by W3C


See also

  • Open system
    Open system (computing)

    Open systems are computer systems that provide some combination of interoperability, porting, and open standards. The term was popularized in the early 1980s, mainly to describe systems based on Unix, especially in contrast to the more entrenched mainframe computer and minicomputers in use at that time....
  • Vendor lock-in
    Vendor lock-in

    In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in, or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for Product s and Service , unable to use another vendor without substantial switching barriers....
  • Embrace, extend and extinguish
    Embrace, extend and extinguish

    "Embrace, extend and extinguish," also known as "Embrace, extend, and exterminate," is a phrase that the United States Department of Justice found was used internally by Microsoft to describe their strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with Proprietary software capabilities,...
  • Network effect
    Network effect

    In economics and business, a network effect is the effect that one user of a good or Service has on the value of that product to other people....
  • Free file format
    Free file format

    A free file format is a file format whose full specification is freely available and for which there are no restrictions on its use. Users may design and use variations that suit their needs, and contribute enhancements for potential incorporation into the next official version of the format....


External links

  • software implementing open formats
  • by Jimmy Wales