Now that we know Canon neither obfusticates their RAW files nor apparently plans to do so,
Canon has done this. Schewe insists that they haven't, but Dave Coffin proved that they had by cracking the encryption, and Thomas admitted as much himself. No, they haven't encrypted the newer files, but they had encrypted the older files.
And, Phase One, the company that produces the P25 back reviewed as the best Medium Format back by this site, encrypts the whole file. They did this before Nikon encrypted their files, but when that happened and when Canon encrypted their files in the past, there was no out cry. Now, in discussion threads across the internet, many of them started by Schewe --
a Canon Explorer of Light -- you find Nikon being based. (BTW, I don't know Schewe, nor do I have anything personal against him if it sounds like I do. I enjoy looking at his photography, and wish him well.)
Where is the uproar over the encryption by the company of the best medium format back available as of Winter 2004/2005?
The Nikon SDK, which is free to "bona fide software developers" does not allow access to the raw file.
I'm not talking about free licensing. I'm talking about Adobe paying Nikon a licensing fee to be able to crack the encryption. Are there negotiation in this aspect? Schewe, can you find this out? And if there are not, what does Thomas say about it? What does Nikon say about it? I've worked with enough large companies in the past and negotiated enough to know that money talks. I image that almost everyone on this forum has had these types of negotiations.
Nikon wants to maintain control of the RAW data, data that are yours -- you created it.
No, you created an image that is held inside a format that was designed and created by Nikon, in this case. You certainly control the Copyright to the image you created, but you have never owned the file formats that you're image is stored in. Do you think you own the tiff format? No, you don't. Adobe owns the Copyright to the Tiff format. Jpeg is open source.
Countless similar examples could be contrived.
Yes, you could contrive countless examples, but in all of those examples, they still won't address the issue at hand, which really comes down to Copyright and Control of a file format. And whether or not every company should have to make their formats open source or not.
If you're happy with PS 6.0 and Capture and you don't mind ever going beyond that, fine,
Actually, after reading about this merge to HDR, I'm thinking that I'll be upgrading. Now, I have to figure out if I can upgrade from 6.0 or if I haven't to pay for the versions that I skipped.
I want to be able to convert my images in the future, and I like to have choice, but I can also understand the desire to maintain control over something that you've created, like Nikon wants to maintain control over their file format. What really needs to happen is that Nikon and Adobe work out some sort of licensing agreement. If they don't, then I could see a future where Nikon will encrypt all its RAW files, Adobe will stop supporting them, and some other software manufacture will step up to the plate and Adobe will lose all that business.