Why should my organization open our file format to the community?
You may feel that by concealing the details of your format, you can "lock in" your customers to a particular software package, or protect your organization in case of errors, but hiding your format has drawbacks:
You will generate animosity among your users when they cannot easily perform needed operations on their data. As a result, your users may switch to another vendor, or even build their own systems, the next time they upgrade their hardware (or perhaps even immediately).
Your format will almost certainly be reverse engineered anyway, unless you poison your format by hiding behind the DMCA or similar law, in which case your format will be unusable and customers will abandon it completely. Since a reverse-engineered implementation is less likely to completely and correctly reflect the quality and depth of your format, it would be more in your interest to assist the community in an open implementation, or at least provide them with a specification document so that they can create one themselves.
