November 22, 2017 11:21 AM, "John Hughes" <john@???> wrote:

> On 22/11/17 08:48, Didier Kryn wrote:
>
>> Le 22/11/2017 à 07:19, John Hughes a écrit :
>>> Is there any way to read a file in format X without a program that
>>> reads format X?
>>
>> The question is why use yet another "proprietary format"? Just to
>> force people to be use systemd for every task they need to do with
>> their computer.
>
> Here we go again with the "assume bad faith".
>
> The systemd journal format is not a proprietary format.


proprietary:
: something that is used, produced, or marketed under exclusive legal right of the inventor or maker

As far as I know, there is still no human-readable description of journal file format.
The only reference is journald source code, which is open source but some people prefer
not to be exposed to it (because of licensing at least, if not other reasons).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but all readers of journal (in syslogs, log forwarders and
aggregators) get the data through journald API or systemd library. No one manage
to read those files directly, right?

Journald files, having no documented format, fit in definition of “proprietary”.