Proprietary formats thrive not so much because they're superior as because they encourage an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt among end users. If someone's been using Microsoft Word for a decade, and all of their old files are in the DOC format, they'll most likely feel (whether it's reasonable or not) that they should continue to buy upgrades to Word in perpetuity, out of an ill-founded concern for backward compatibility. The reality, however, is that proprietary standards create greater compatibility problems than open ones, because they are less subject to approval and oversight, and the changes they undergo tend to serve the interests of the vendor rather than the end user.

Over the past several years, we've seen an explosion of proprietary standards in the music industry, all in the name of digital rights management. Rather than increasing choice and opportunities for consumers, DRM-laden music formats place artificial limitations on the number of devices (and types of devices) we can enjoy our music on. As a point of comparison, you can buy a CD at the store and play it on any CD-playing device you find, whether it's in your car, your computer, your portable player, or your alarm clock. The disc doesn't care. and you've paid for the right to play it anywhere. (And to make a backup copy, if you so choose, or rip it to a digital format that you can play on your iPod.) DRM whittles down that choice by limiting you, in most cases, to three devices per track (and typically offering poor or limited options for de-authorizing devices). Meanwhile, many proprietary formats are of lower quality than their open-standard counterparts, even if they're not riddled with DRM code.

Open Standards
The good news is that the digital world is brimming with reliable open standards and formats, many of which already enjoy more widespread use than their proprietary rivals. One such example is PDF, which was developed by Adobe but is used almost universally, and will likely soon become an official ISO international standard. Other great examples include HTML and XML, which together dominate the interwebs.

But there are less known open formats out there that should get more attention than they do, but languish in comparison to more established proprietary formats. Chief among these is ODF (aka OASIS OpenDocument Format). ODF is the default file format for OpenOffice.org, and it's an internationally accepted ISO standard. Like Microsoft's new Office Open XML (DOCX) format, ODF is based on XML, which makes it extremely flexible for various kinds of files, from spreadsheets to text documents and graphics. However, unlike DOCX, ODF was developed by an international consortium, rather than a single company, and is based on existing standards. Microsoft's OOXML, on the other hand, is a wild departure from existing standards that will almost certainly cause more interoperability headaches than it will solve. What Microsoft's real intention may be in the development of OOXML remains to be seen, but it likely has more to do with posturing for future patent suits than with serving the public interest.

For music, the OGG media standard is one of the best around, and its popularity is growing fast. It's flexible, open, and it retains excellent sound quality. Unfortunately, some leading media players don't support it, because their manufacturers have a vested interest in saddling you with DRM-laden files of their own design. But if you really care about music, skip the tip to the online music store and buy real CDs. Then you can rip them as high-quality, lossless OGG-FLACs that you'll own forever.

UPDATE (7/11/07 7:32PM PDT): For more specific analysis of Microsoft so-called Open XML (an ironic name, since XML is already an open standard), check out this critical post by Rob Weir. (Via /.)