Talk:Free file format

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1 Other free file formats?
2 SVG
3 PDF
4 Examples
5 More?
6 Open formats merge?
7 GIF

[edit] Other free file formats?

Does PNG fit here?
Does DjVu fit here?
Does Musepack (MPC) fit here?
Does CSV fit here?
Does Rich Text Format (RTF) developed by Microsoft, fit here?
Does XPM fit here?
JPEG (image format) is not an open format!!

[edit] SVG

SVG is a subset(?) of XML. Should it be listed?

That consideration does not disallow it. XML is way too general. I think it would make a good addition

[edit] PDF

PDF says it is proprietary. 24.210.73.62 21:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I am confused, the article says that it is a "proprietary file format" and then it says "PDF is also an open standard in the sense that anyone may create applications that read and write PDF files without having to pay royalties to Adobe Systems." hmm.. -- Frap 08:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

We'll never be able to list all free file formats. Shouldn't we add a note to the top that they are just examples? 84.236.49.87 15:31, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure there are so many free file formats. There is always the {{Dynamic list}} template that could be added though... -- Frap 15:35, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, maybe "File format" is not well defined enough. But many programs have their own file format, and there is a great deal of free software out there. Even if you disallow private file formats which have only been used by one project. Perhaps if you exclude most plain text formats on the basis that they are either simple configuration files, programming languages, or subsets of a general markup language e.g. XML, you could get there... but I offer OFX, Vcard and Vcalendar as potential counterexamples. And Postscript (although I'm not sure about its openness) is a programming language, plain text as far as I know.

I don't think this article is very useful at the moment: a list does not an article make. I suspect theres a fair amount which could be said, potentially using the examples gathered so far.

Very good points. I think a distinction maybe ought to be made between several kinds of freeness and openness (and their interactions), in file formats particularly. There are many more distinctions than just free, open, and proprietary. The file format and decompression algorithm for RAR, for instance, are open, but the compression algorithm is proprietary. The JPEG compression method seems to be free, but various file formats containing JPEG information may be open (as the official JPEG file format) or proprietary (IIRC the JFIF format is an example). Likewise MPEG (MPEG-4 is open, but WMV and Quicktime are proprietary), AVI (the AVI container format is open, but some of the codecs are free) and contrarywise Ogg (I know of no technical reason preventing the use of WMV data within an Ogg container). There are proprietary XML DTDs. Many other examples could be found, or contrived for illustrative purposes. There's scope for a large article discussing this subject, I imagine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.33.49.251 (talk) 19:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] More?

CSV?
CSS?
XML: RSS, OPML, SVG, XHTML?
TeX?
SSI/SHTML ?
tar?
gzip RFC 1952
XPM
XBM
PPM
RSS (this is XML)

[edit] Open formats merge?

Shouldn't there be an explanation of how a free file format is different from an open format, if there is a difference? The incomplete lists on each article seem entirely redundant. Mike Linksvayer 21:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure where to draw the line or if there is much of a difference. But some formats have the specifications available so they're kinda "open" (?) or are they? either way, you're not allowed to implement them due to license or patents or stuff. I am not sure those constitutes as open formats... =/ -- Frap 22:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)