Comment by onlyrealcuzzo
2 days ago
> My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications.
There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook in today's formats 50 years from now.
Same for applications.
You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?
I would happily bet that 50 years from now, so long as you've preserved the bytes accurately, it will remain possible to open DRM-free PDF/A files, epubs, MP3s, JPEGs, PNGs, CSVs and zip files.
With well defined and documented file formats, and with OSS applications supporting them, they can be read for all eternity.
You don't need binary compatibility. You can load a gif on any computer today, and it's old. I can view aiff image files from my Amiga still.
We're already 50 years in on many formats.
Where it becomes uncertain, it DRM laden, closed source applications with bespoke file formats.
1) Survivorship bias
How many image formats CAN'T you read today that you could read 50 years ago?
2) Images are much much much more ubiquitous than book formats
Parents point is, even if the software to read the format disappears or is much more difficult to run for some reason- if there are published specs, you can recreate it. This is why non proprietary formats are such a great thing.
I would bet that the vast majority if not all image formats that can't be read anymore are due to their spec never being published.
> Survivorship bias
GIF, JPEG, MP3... these are all patented technologies whose patents have expired into the public domain. That they're still used and useful today is a very strong indication that they'll be available in another 50 years. I think that having public patents for image and audio formats helps to demonstrate that it's more than just survivorship bias.
i was going to collate a list, but instead https://www.lemkesoft.info/files/manuals_gc12/GraphicConvert...
That supports 200 image file formats as inputs, and you can then export it to PNG or GIF or BMP.
Your question, on its face, seems ok, but really, there's probably millions of image file formats lost to the sands of time. Shareware image creation programs, tiny fly-by-nite company's software that only ever had one major release (probably some cad formats in there. Those were where i used to always have problems 22 years ago when i did this for work.)
however, at least 200 of them are preserved through that "company's" dedication to this topic.
> How many image formats CAN'T you read today that you could read 50 years ago?
I don’t know. How many?
> There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook in today's formats 50 years from now.
I have no idea what “easily” means here, but I’m not unique. While these open-format ebooks remain of interest to even a small community, they will remain readable and convertable.
What makes you doubt that?
> You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?
Again, I have no idea what “easily” means here. However, my use of “proper” also wasn’t clear (I edited it down from “free software”).
“Proper” certainly implies that their runnability does not depend on the wall clock, or availability of an internet service. Yes, I am confident that I can run such programs in the future, on appropriate hardware.
(Note how the thread is about digital, not physical, things.)
Do you have any examples of digital media/apps in open formats which are no longer accessible?