Closed File Formats and Christian Ethics

A Church article with View Comments posted 11 November 2008.
Tags: ethics, file formats, freedom software, proprietary software, third world

Professor Vern Sheridan Poythress, a Presbyterian seminary professor, has a great website where he has made a huge portion of his lifetime writings available completely free. On his site, he has published an article discussing the ethical implications of closed file formats.

Poythress roots his discussion primarily in justice for people in the Third World who cannot obtain copies of proprietary software to open files saved in proprietary formats. This is an important point for the church, where communication with people in other countries has been strongly facilitated by the Internet, but I would like to extend his argument somewhat. When one is in the position to choose between software which interoperates with free and open formats and software which does not, one is, in part, making a choice to obligate the future users of one’s work to use particular software.

It’s important to note at this point that none of this discussion necessarily points to using freedom software. If Microsoft, for example, produces a version of Word that fully interoperates with the OpenDocument format, the ethical question of file formats goes away. You might choose to use costly proprietary software to create your document, but the recipient is not obligated do to likewise because the file format is open and anyone can write a program to work with it. Hence, the ethical question of file formats is not even whether the file format is open or closed. Instead, the question is whether or not there exists freely available software for reading and fully manipulating that document down the road. As long as that software exists and is readily available, you can choose whatever software you like.

There are plenty of good reasons to choose freedom software over proprietary software in many instances. Freedom software almost always uses open file formats, so interoperability is guaranteed.

Ultimately, the ethics of file formats is about control. It is irresponsible of the church to give control over access to data or choice of software away unnecessarily.

You might also enjoy:

1. Three steps to Open Source in the Church
2. The Christian Ethos of Freedom Software
3. Freedom Software vs. Freedomware?
4. “Freedom Software” versus “Free Software”
5. Why Open Source Software is like Church Coffee Beans