Future Trends For Media Delivery - Where will RunRev Be?

[Peter Alcibiades]

unless the trend reverses itself there may come a point where
> even free systems which are sole-source proprietary technologies will
> eventually be struggling.
Yes, agreed.  In fact, agreed with much of this interesting post.  

The driver is going to be the risk of having orphaned data.  It can be data
that you have produced in an app, which is stored in binary and proprietary
formats.  Or it can be stored in open format, but where the nature of the
presentation is done in such a way that without the proprietary app you
cannot use it.  

Rev has both risks (like most proprietary products).  If for instance you
have stored significant amounts of material in custom properties, they are
basically locked away as far as a user's other applications are concerned. 
If you've stored them in something totally transparent, like external csv
files, still and all, their usability is limited without the app itself,
which remains proprietary, with the language itself, which has only one
source.

Lots of times short term this seems to be in the interest of the developer
or supplier of the package.  But if you ever find yourself supplying
something with your own mortality moving to the front of your mind, these
questions will be a bit troubling.  It forces you into the position of the
buyer who asks 'and what happens if you have a heart attack?  Or if
Edinburgh vanishes under the waves one day?'

I'm not sure that true open source going to be essential, its one way of
meeting the issue.  But it does seem likely that the issue of access to, and
use of, content which a user has generated, independently of what generated
it, is going to be increasingly important in the medium term, and its a
large part of the pressure to FOSS.

By the way, I've just now given up on Gnome in disgust, which I do every so
often, and gone to Fluxbox, so am pleased to see a slightly more chastened
attitude in the post toward the Gnome HIG fascism!  Only kidding!
-- 
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