… There is a disturbing lack of serious discussion among content producers and consumers alike about long-term preservation of this electronic residue that we’re all creating these days. …
Three critical elements must come together to really allow public sector, cultural institutions, schools, businesses, and family and civic groups to ensure the same level of historical evidentiary preservation in the digital age that we all took for granted in the paper age. These three elements are: open standards for file formats, open standards for interoperability, and open source for content repository and retrieval platforms. …
Today’s digitally stored knowledge will have meaning beyond our own human lifespans. We all love to know where our institutions, families, and communities came from and how they’ve evolved. Let’s not cheat our great-grandchildren out of that experience. Marketers sometimes use the buzz-word “future-proofing” to explain to prospects and customers how open source can be a safety net against the whims of the merger-and-acquisition-crazed technology industry. Beyond the buzzword, let’s think about the kinds of documents, images, recordings, and information we experience. It’s up to us to choose open source and open standards to ensure this current era of information overload doesn’t become known as the Dark Ages 2.0.
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