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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.cis.okstate.edu!newsfeed.ksu.ksu.edu!news.physics.uiowa.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!cssun.mathcs.emory.edu!gatech!concert!news-server.ncren.net!taco.cc.ncsu.edu!crazytrain.eos.ncsu.edu!not-for-mail From: kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu (Kevin P. Neal) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Followup-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Date: 24 Apr 1996 23:17:28 GMT Organization: The House of RetroComputing Lines: 33 Message-ID: <4lmcq8$mt0@taco.cc.ncsu.edu> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <4l0fv9$1bfs@news.missouri.edu> <4l2u61$fdg@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <4l4crd$nus@miso.cs.uq.edu.au> <4l69vn$jb@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <slrn4ns1n9.u5v.kfoltman@rexio.uci.agh.edu.pl> NNTP-Posting-Host: crazytrain.eos.ncsu.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:22398 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:851 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3531 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3388 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:18200 comp.os.linux.advocacy:47189 Krzysztof Foltman (kfoltman@rexio.uci.agh.edu.pl) wrote: : In article <4l69vn$jb@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>, Byron A Jeff wrote: : : >- Come up with a free/open file formats for documents, spreadsheets and : >other file formats. : : .... give the example Perl scripts to do wonders with them ;-) ... Actually, I was thinking that the Amiga IFF format would be ideal. No, it isn't just for pictures. It is a general way of wrapping data into chunks so that a parser can read through a file and pick out the parts that it recognizes, and be sure to ignore the rest. For example, a multimedia package with text, pictures, and sound could save it's file to disk. A word processor could read the file and pick out the text. A picture viewer could let you view the graphics in the file. Same deal with sound. It's a very nice format, very well documented, and there is plenty of example code out there that parses the files. A library or two (copyright disagreements) could be written for use in applications, perhaps included as part of the base OS as in AmigaDOS 2.04 (I think that was when iffparse.library appeared?). You could even take CBM's API, it's well documented as well. What do you say? -- XCOMM Kevin P. Neal, Sophomore, Comp. Sci. \ kpneal@interpath.com XCOMM Frue, Secret Agent of Smerp (shh!) \ kpneal@eos.ncsu.edu XCOMM Visit the House of RetroComputing at / Perm. Email: XCOMM http://www4.ncsu.edu/~kpneal/www/ / kevinneal@bix.com