Software to Read/Convert a Folio Infobase File?

garyebickford writes "Infobase is an application and data format that appears to be very popular among various governmental agencies. It is apparently also used to produce many CD/DVD titles. The 'Folio' software to read and write Infobase files is evidently now produced by NextPage Inc.. (Note: in order to get their page to come up, I had to set Opera to say it was Explorer). In my case, I have been given an Infobase file that contains, to my knowledge, public domain material. However the software to read it is Windows-specific, and I am resistant to the idea of buying a Windows box just to read it. I tried contacting the company that produced the Infobase, but the support number for the company is no longer connected, and their email address bounces. I seem to have an orphan dataset. I have looked fairly extensively for any open source software that can read or write the Infobase format, without success. Does anyone know the format, or (bless you) have an algorithm to unpack the data?"

"Until I began this search, I had never heard of Infobase. After seeing 12,400 hits on Google (search for "Infobase document"), mostly for Infobase documents on web servers, mostly for the information archives of regional and city governments, I believe that an Infobase reading and writing tool could be a valuable open source project, especially considering that presently Infobase is entirely a Windows product.

Another factor is that the Folio Infobase has now been around ten years. One might worry that without a second source, all those Infobase files could be lost if the existing software is no longer supported at some point."