Developers respond

It seems that at least a couple of developers of applications which read Nikon RAW files have reverse engineered the encoded sections for use in their applications ... This deserves comment. Many developers love a challenge, but in this case the developers feel, and so do many users, that the company in question is letting their people make ill advised and short sighted decisions. Yes, I can understand why companies want to protect their products, and also their intellectual property, but, in this case, the digital files are not your property, they are the property of the photographer or the company he/she works for. Give people the choice, let them pick the "lab" they will use to "develop/print" their pictures. By playing games all you are doing is alienating your clients/customers. In my opinion it's time for larger companies to grow up, and time to become more client compliant and friendly ... stop trying to screw people over ... let them make their choices free of the constraints that the legal eagles would have you believe will make your company more secure. It's all rubbish, as are the current implementations of the patent approval process and the copyright laws. We need more tech savvy people in government and more open standards for things like file formats to prevent the Patent Privateers from screwing all development into the ground.