I started a new thread on this because I think it's important, and the other thread on his commentary is mostly about hardware.
About the DNG standard. I work with cameras from three different companies (Nikon D800/D3, Panasonic M4/3, and Sony RX100) and it would be a great benefit to me if all three were DNG (and I do convert everything to DNG in Lightroom, except the RX100, for which Lightroom has no converter yet.) But, I don't think it's all the companies' fault. I think they feel pressed to provide at least some conversion software so that their customers don't have to go out and buy a relatively expensive and complicated program like Lightroom to process their raw photos. What might work better for everyone is if Adobe offered the companies a customized, compact conversion program (not just access to the standard, but an actual Adobe program) where the user interface is standardized across all cameras that use it; and then if Apple and Microsoft offered DNG compatibility with their built in OSX and Windows photo programs (they may do that already; I don't know, because I don't use them.) The idea would be to give people who are not that involved with photography a route to use RAW, even on a toe-dipping basis with their built-in software, and then have that knowledge apply to better and more sophisticated cameras if they choose to move up. Now, every time you buy a new camera, you have to start over. People say, "Well, buy Lightroom, it's not that complicated." It isn't, compared to Photoshop, but the Lula Lightroom instruction tapes are what, eight hours long? That's not a simple program, and represents a pretty steep learning curve for a lot of new camera buyers.
I guess another way of saying this is, there's nothing wrong with the Sony RX100 conversion software except that it's a mess. But it converts okay. If Adobe provided a front-end interface, and if the Sony engineers then adopted their conversion routines to that front end, life would be much easier.
Another thing: I suspect that a very large number of people buy expensive cameras not always because they want to be "pros" or "artists," but because they've been successful in life and they're interested in technology and a lot of other things, so they buy a nice camera and a few lenses...but they don't really have the time or the interest to completely master the whole Lightroom conversion/master printing routine. They may get good at it, but they really don't have time for the kind of stuff that we see routinely argued about on this forum. They'll learn the camera basics, and use Lightroom mostly to push a couple of sliders and to store the photos, and then make some okay (or even excellent) prints at default settings on an Epson or Canon, and that's about it. And that's great, IMHO. But for those people, who really don't want to learn a new Lightroom every two years, some real standards in interfaces would be a huge boon and a boost to the camera industry in general, IMHO.
