Open vs. Closed Formats
This is a work in progress! Please let me know if you notice any important formats I'm missing.
I especially would love to hear about more GIS formats,
and information on calendaring formats.
| Instead of (closed) | Consider using (open) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | File ext | Owned by | Name | File ext |
| Text documents | ||||
| MS Word | .doc | Microsoft | Open document format | .odf |
| HTML | .html, .htm | |||
| Plain text | .txt | |||
| Postscript or PDF1 | .pdf, .ps | |||
| Spreadsheets | ||||
| Excel | .xls, .xlw | Microsoft | Open document spreadsheet | .ods |
| Comma-separated | .csv | |||
| Images | ||||
| Photoshop | .psd | Adobe | JPEG, PNG | .jpg, .png |
| GIMP XCF2 | .xcf | |||
| Bitmap, Microsoft Office Document Imaging | .bmp, .mdi | Microsoft | GIF3 | .gif |
| Music | ||||
| Windows Media Audio, AAC | .wma, .aac | Microsoft, Apple | Ogg Vorbis | .ogg |
| Mpeg34 | .mp3 | |||
| Windows Media Lossless | .wma | Microsoft | FLAC, WAV (lossless) | .flac, .wav |
| Video | ||||
| Windows Media Video | .wmv | Microsoft | MPEG1, MPEG4, | .mpeg, .mp4, .mpeg4 |
| Quicktime Sorenson 3 | .mov, .qt | Apple/Sorenson | DivX, Ogg Theora, Dirac | .divx, .ogv |
| Talks/Presentations | ||||
| PowerPoint, Keynote | .ppt,pps .key | Microsoft, Apple | ||
| HTML | .html, .htm | |||
| Open Document Presentation | .odp | |||
| Geographic information / GIS | ||||
| MrSID | .sid | LizardTech | GeoTIFF | .tiff |
| Computer-Aided Drawing (CAD) | ||||
| Solidworks, ProE, DWG | .stp, .prt, .prc, .dwg | Solidworks, PTC, Autodesk, etc. | IGES, DXF5 | .iges, .dxf |
| LEGO Digital Designer, LEGO Track Designer | .lxf, .lxfml, .tdr | LEGO Group | LDRAW | .ldr, .mpd, .dat |
Notes
1. PDF is owned by Adobe but is open (public specification, no patent issues).
2. GIMP's XCF format is open and there is a public spec, but few other applications currently support it well. In the past the developers discouraged its use by other applications but that's no longer the case. Of course, it's the format of choice for GIMP projects.
3. GIF used to have patent problems, but the patents have now expired.
4. MP3 isn't open -- patent issues make it a legal risk -- but it's very well supported by a variety of software and devices.
5. DXF is owned by AutoDesk but is an open specification for file exchange. DWG, on the other hand, is still under litigation.
(This page is formatted in HTML -- an open format -- and is available at: http://shallowsky.com/openformats)