With its early audio players, the company actually expected customers to dutifully convert (using software that is generously remembered as buggy) all of their song files into a proprietary format that the players could play.

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The contrast is all the sharper given some of the successes shown by those using open-source software: the District of Columbia, for example, has junked its servers and proprietary software in favour of the standard package of applications offered and hosted by Google.

ECONOMIST: Technology and the public sector