Public Data formats, Operatings Systems, Programming languages

I prefer DataFormats which are public, with an Openrating System of which the core is public and programming languages that are not tied to a specific operating system or supplier.

Why public dataformats. preferably with sourcecode?

We see the end user as the owner of the data that are stored on the computer. A user that has his data stored in a format that is not public,
means that the information can not be retreived at will by the owner. That can have very serious consequences in the long term: software companies fade away, dataformats forgotten by the creators.
In that way data can et lost very easily. Another problem that can occur is when data get corrupted. It should not be the case that only the creator of the dataformat can repair or retrieve the data in such a case.

That is why we try to use dataformats and tools that will enable the user to manage, store and retrieve his data without interference with the original software creator. So that the user can change of software, supplier and operating systems without much trouble.

Because of that we try as much as possible to use Postgresql and Mariadb as database systems, of SVG, JPEG2000 and PNG for graphics, Mpeg4 for video, of PDF, HTML, MarkDown and Open Document for text.

We also prefer Operating Systems of which the source code is publicly available: Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Mac OS are some of the OS’es we use.

Why an Operating System of which the Source Code is available?

Now that nearly every desktop computer and server is connected to the Internet it is paramount that your data is well protected against hostile attacks that come from the network. An Operating System of which the core is not known, analysed and verified on its functioning outside the company that produces it, has a far greater chance to have unknown errors. The errors can then be used by evil attackers.

Why a programming language and function libraries that are not tied to one Operating System?

We do not want to enforce the customer to use a specific Operating System only because the programmer happens to use a programming language that is only available on that specific platform. If the customer prefers to use another Operating System than that should be possible.

We prefer languages that gives customers that option, like Perl, PHP, Python, Go, Flutter

We also prefer developertools to use these programming languages that avoid to choose for a specific Operating System, such as SublimeText, Visual Code Studio and Emacs.

For hardware development we use KiCad, and we prefer Beaglebone as our main development plaform. For now, until open hardware based on RISC-V becomes our platform of choice.