The crucial role of file formats in building and preserving Digital Media Cultures

Marco Fioretti (marco@digifreedom.net) 2010/09/09 ESF Paying Attention Conference
http://mfioretti.com Linkoping
http://stop.zona-m..net Some Rights Reserved
The crucial role of file formats in building
and preserving Digital Media Cultures
and in the practical impact of such cultures on society
by Marco Fioretti
http://mfioretti.net
http://stop.zona-m.net

2
Marco Fioretti
Freelance writer, activist and teacher about open digital standards, Free Software,
digital technologies and the their relations and impact on education, ethics, civil
rights and environmental issues
●Author of the Family Guide to Digital Freedom (http://digifreedom.net)
●Member of:
● OpenDocument Fellowship
● Digistan.org
● Eleutheros.it
Author background

3
● In this digital world, how do we preserve the possibility of
attention from the future?
● Are we making it possible for future generations (or even to
ourselves 10 years from now) to pay attention to our digital
works?
● How do we keep or exchange attention across social classes and
across opposite sides of the digital divide?
Speaking of generational responsibilities...

4
● Digital media cultures are rich and powerful, but also terribly
fragile
● Digital text or multimedia may be much more durable than house,
but very often isn't. Why?
● especially considering that it's infinitely copiable without degradation?
● Is this related to mechanical / electrical obsolescence, e.g. 5"
floppies or data tapes from the 80's unreadable because there are
no more drives for those objects around? NO!
Characteristics of digital cultures

5
● Software creates habits and relationships, that is culture
● We don't make up information just to use cool software. We
use software because we need to manage information.
Software is the intermediary between people, their own
digital documents and all kinds of services
● Technology (especially digital technology) is legislation
● What does this have to do with formats???
● Question: why do we change so many desktop computers every
few years, even if they are still perfectly working?
Social impact of digital technologies

Basic concepts and definitions
Q: How do we create, access and preserve information?
A: Thanks to three very different things:
Physical Support: the material object containing the information
Data Format: the rules by which the information is encoded on the support
User Interface: the tools used to write and read the data according to the format
almost always, Support, Format and Interface can (and should) be
independent from each other

Support, Format, Interface: analog electronic example
Support Format
Support and format are mixed here: Photograms can only
be impressed on a specific type of tape, in a way not usable
with other cameras and projectors
Interface
Camera and Projector that are
useless with any other tape
NOTE: this is the very popular Super 8mm home movie format, released on the market in
1965 by Eastman Kodak, not widely used since the 1980's

Support, Format, Interface: non electronic example
Interface
+
Any manual writing instrument
(don't forget quill and charcoal!)
and your eye!
Format
Hyeroglyphs (which could also
be written on paper, papyrus,
wood...) and the meanings
associated to each gliph
Support
The Rosetta
Stone,
II Century BC

Support, Format, Interface: digital, finally!
Support
Hard drives, floppies, CD
ROMs, DVDs, Compact
Flash drives... usable with
different hardware
They all contain the same
bits that can represent
wildly different types of
information: text, images,
audio...
Format
CHARACTER ENCODING:
the meaning associated to each bit
sequence:
EX: “01000001” means “A”
FILE FORMAT:
how each piece of data can and
must be stored and marked:
<style:properties style:columnwidth="1.785cm"/>
...
<table:table
cell><text:p>600000</text:p></table:tablecell>
+
Interface
Any software program aware of
the file format, regardless of :
the hardware it runs on: x86 or Apple
computer, cell phone, DVD player,
remote server...
Its license of use

Why is digital information good?
If all conceivable
kinds of
information (from
texts to music,
images and 3D
models) can be
represented as a
series of bits
We only need:
ONE class of generic storage devices: bit containers which can change shape and technology
without particular problems and are very cheap
ONE (ok, very large...) class of telecom networks, ie bit transporters
And all these data can be preserved or distributed with much less money, time and effort than before!
55 73 65 20 4f 70 65 6e 44 6f 63 75 6d 65 6e 74 21

Why is digital information bad?
If all conceivable kinds of information (from texts to music, images and 3D models) can be represented as
bits sequences stored in bits containers, we have (at least) two big problems:
Bit containers are much more fragile than non-digital media: parchment lasts millennia, hard drives a few
years
This problem has a relatively easy solution (make many copies of information, refresh them
frequently) and is outside the scope of this seminar
The second problem is that, even when the container works perfectly, the sequences of bits are absolutely
useless if they are locked and we lose the key and cannot buy one:
W
ork
Culture
Private
life
Public
data
55 73 65 20 4f 70 65 6e 44 6f 63 75 6d 65 6e 74 21

Format wars: Mars, 1976
July 20th, 1976:
the Viking Lander is the First
Spacecraft to Operate on
the Surface of Mars
2003
"All the programmers had died or left
NASA”
"It was hopeless to try to go back to
the original tapes”
“With the data in an unknown
format, [it was necessary] to track
down printouts and hire students to
retype everything”
(www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/21/tech/main537308.shtml)

The UK National Archives, which holds 900 years of written material, has
more than 580 terabytes of data in older file formats that are no longer
commercially available.
Chief Executive of The National Archives , Natalie Ceeney, said society faced
the possibility of "losing years of critical knowledge"
“some digital documents held by the National Archives had already been lost
forever because the programs which could read them no longer existed.”
“the issue of older file formats was a bigger problem than reading outdated
forms of media, such as floppy discs of various sizes and punch cards”.
"We are starting to find an awful lot of cases of what has been lost. What we
have got to make sure is that it doesn't get any worse."
Format wars 2007: time bomb at the UK National Archives
“The root cause of the problem is the range of proprietorial file formats that proliferated during the early digital revolution”.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6265976.stm
Test: how many other public archives are in the same situation?

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● Flipnote Studio is an animation
editor for Nintendo DSi
game consoles
● Animations are stored in a
proprietary format called
PPM that has no official
specification
● They can be uploaded directly
only to a Nintendo Portal,
not to other websites like
YouTube,
Who owns the cartoons that YOU create?
● Because Nintendo has no plans to support posting YOUR Flipnotes to other websites
(thanks to Fabrizio for this information!)
Picture©2010Fabrizio

15
“Quitime ™ and a TIFF
(uncompressed)
decompressor are
needed to see this
picture”
File formats issues at #patn10?
Why?

16
Is this “sitsim” (situated simulation)
usable on smartphones cheaper
than the iPhone, or on traditional
computers?
Interactive multimedia? Even worse...
●Above all:
● Will it still be both usable and editable when (when, not “if”)
Apple and the producers of all the software used to make it
won't be around anymore?

17
● Software programs are pens, file formats are the
alphabets of the digital society
● Technically speaking, file formats can almost always be completely
separated from the specific software program(s) used to manage them
● If only truly open file formats are used, it doesn't matter if some pens
are very expensive and/or patented
● Would you tolerate pens that only allow to you write your notes and
letters with the font and language that the pen maker likes?
What are file formats?

18
● Keeping digital data and documents in proprietary formats can be
worst than not having them at all:
● it destroys or diverts (the possibility of) attention
● it creates even more digital divides
● Carelessness about formats transforms culture and (possibilities) of
paying attention
● People can only see, remember, use and understand, that is pay
attention, if digital documents and communications are in open
formats
Conclusions: pay attention to file formats

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● Public document and services are increasingly managed through purely digital
data that can be published online at very low cost
● Open Data/Open Government may transform current states in active, really
participated democracy
● but only if all data are in plain sight in the right way everybody may quickly
offer public services, create wealth or "watch the watchmen"
● because public data presented in the wrong file format are almost useless since
they can't be QUICKLY processed or correlated
● E.G: a budget in PDF format instead of spreadsheet is much harder to validate
Oh, and what about (raw) data?

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● Education to the role of file formats is necessary
● Only use open formats whenever it's possible
● Only use the right formats for each task
● (teach to) Go beyond "printed-pageness" and visual look of documents
(why waste more time on font or margins than on content, for text that
should be a Wiki page usable even on cell phones?)
● Teach to analyze and process data of public interests
● Oh, and of course: please, please, please...
Conclusions (2)

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● Refuse to use proprietary file formats in
Universities!!!!
● It creates discrimination between students that can afford the
hardware needed by closed formats
● All your work risks becoming unaccessible in a few years
● None of the problems above can be solved by software piracy
● It can be very bad PR for your University:
www.linuxjournal.com/article/8739

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● This is necessary for both older and younger
people!
● "Web native" only means "born when the
WWW was already a mass-phaenomenon".
● It doesn't guarantee at all that a “Web native”
is also automatically Web savvy!
Conclusions (4)

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● Absolutely Non Technical seminar on the
economic, social and cultural impact of file
formats:
http://mfioretti.com/2009/02/file-formats-can-favor-or-hamper-innovation-active-citizenship-and-really-free-markets/
● Contact info: http://mfioretti.com
mfioretti@nexaima.net
● Questions?
● Thanks!
Resources, feedback, greetings...

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