Isn't TIF an open format? My (limited) understanding is that its an encapsulator for GIF, JPEG, or LZW compressed RAW bitmaps... wrap it up in a file, add metadata (author, program used to create, layers, etc.), and you've got a TIFF. Sure the standard is controlled by Adobe and Microsoft, but if we should avoid TIFFs then we should also avoid PDFs and PostScripts (both of which, like TIFFs, have publicly published specs AND are contolled by Adobe). And what about 32-bit high-fidelity images for printing presses? Do we switch to PSD? :) And BMPs? I mean, BMPs are plain bit maps, aren't they? You can't copyright the simple concept of a row of bits associated with pixels on the screen; if Microsoft can do that then no OS has the right to display any display at all... All the others on the list I agree that they are proprietary, but BMP and TIF needs explaining, IMHO:) I agree absolutely with the need for open standards; I personally have converted most of my MP3s to OGG. Its just that I thought BMPs and TIFFs are open standards. Please correct me if I'm wrong:) PS.: if you have the time please include at least BBCode, or at least enable the <br> tag; I'm pretty sure nobody likes reading clumped up paragraphs like this:)

 Check out the unofficial tiff home page: http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff/ It has more details on TIFF as an open format (at least as open as PostScript and PDF)

 Don't forget about the Apple Audio formats. They are hardly open and it would provide some balance to all the M$ formats listed!

 Hi, feel free to subscribe and contribute - there are a lot of missing formats in the list!