I'm new to this site. I just wanted to put in my 2 cents worth. I believe I have an objective opinion of this whole thing. I, for one, am no fan of the Adobe Corporation. I like Photoshop though. I have been a Linux user since about 1998 and have become an open source advocate. Last year, I purchased a PowerMac G5 and have become a big fan of Apple Technology. Note I said Apple Technology. I still have a few issues with the corporation.
I think in this day and age, too many corporations want to succeed, not by offering a better widget or service, but by locking the customer in. I have watched Microsoft do this to consumers.
I don't own a digital SLR camera yet, but I have been looking. The digital camera I do own shoots in jpeg or tiff format. Guess what? I can use any software product that supports these formats to get the images off the camera. This is how it should be for everything. Open formats is the only true way. The first corporation that takes this bold move and opens up their formats will be a big winner.
My big question is why isn't the RAW format an open format? 35mm film was an open format. I could buy a roll of 35mm film and use it on any 35mm camera. I could take that roll of film anywhere and have it developed. Why should RAW be any different. Until there is an open standard to RAW that can be used by any software not just Adobe Photoshop or Nikon's software, I don't think I'll be giving RAW anymore thought. I don't want to spend a minimum of $1000 on a camera only to find out I can't get the images off it using any OS platform or any software I choose.
Come on guys this is not about Nikon or Adobe. or any other manufacturer This is about what happens when we try to reprocess our files 20 years from now when Nef is now Nef-3, 4, 5, etc, and the operating system is Mac XXIIIV, or Windows 2025.. If the formats are documented we can write new software on our existing machines for these 20 year old files that were produced by D2Xs, 20Ds, Olympus, etc. If we don't hang together and get the formats documented by ALL manufactures we are screwed in the long term. The database industry has learned this the hard way. Remember the databases from the 70s and 80s, I do. I had lots of problems converting the old data from them into the newer databases. Don't lose your property(images) due to obselence of the software and hardware platforms!!!!
Look at www.openraw.org for more info.
