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GNU Operating SystemProprietary Incompatibility
Other examples of proprietary malware
The “incompatibility” category includes the use of secret formats or protocols in proprietary software. This directly blocks or hinders users from switching to any alternative program—and, in particular, from switching to free software which can liberate the device the software runs on.
Apart from being deliberately anticompetitive, secret formats put users' digital data at risk. For instance, retrieval of old data will become very difficult if support for the proprietary software that can read it is discontinued.
Another sort of incompatibility occurs when a system makes some important operation which would be necessary for migrating data to any other system so cumbersome or so slow that it isn't doable for more than a small amount of data.
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Apple devices lock users in solely to Apple services by being designed to be imcompatible with all other options, ethical or inethical.
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iWork (office software that runs on MacOS, iOS and iCloud) uses secret formats and provides no means of converting them to or from Open Document Formats. iWork formats have changed several times since they were first introduced. This may have had the effect of thwarting reverse engineering efforts, thus preventing free software from fully supporting them.
iWork formats are considered unfit for document preservation.
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In MacOS and iOS, the procedure for converting images from the Photos format to a free format is so tedious and time-consuming that users just give up if they have a lot of them.
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