Follow-up on comments from the royalty-free license discussion
This continues to be a really great discussion. I think we're really starting to get somewhere. There were so many comments, I couldn't reply to all, and I figured I would break this out into a new post. Let's dig into a couple of the comments from the previous post since there were some really good points raised:
1. The Microsoft Office Open XML format license is perpetual and will continue in future versions.
A few people raised concerns around Microsoft somehow being able to change the license or the formats no longer being accessible. The license actually is perpetual. Take a look, its right here: https://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp.
I'd also like to respond to an issue raised by Pete:
Since MS was backed into this position, how will it respond in the future if the threat abates? If MS was completely serious about Open Formats as a real business strategy, instead of a makeshift response forced upon them, Ballmer a Gates would get in front of the world, and put the trust thing to rest by declaring publicly "Microsoft will forever make Open Formats the default for MS Office Products!" *That* would help address the trust issue. Without it, companies will hedge their bets even with this new move by MS because "the future is murky". Of course, even with such bold statements there will be GPL whiners, but that's always the case. One thing is for sure, you can never please them. MS could however please the business and government communities by making moves to restore trust.
Pete, we definitely haven't been backed into this position. We've been moving in this direction for a long time now. We've had accessible formats for a long time (RTF, HTML, etc.). The XML formats started with Excel in Office XP (which development started back in 1999). As far as publicly saying this is the direction we are going, we've done just that. Unfortunately, people don't seem to pay as much attention to that, but it's true. Check out this letter to the European Union that Steven Sinofsky submitted over a year ago: https://www.microsoft.com/office/xml/response.mspx. If you haven't read that yet you should check it out. It clearly addresses a number of concerns I've heard folks raise. We are moving to represent all document information in XML and to fully document it.
2. The OpenDocument format has IP and needs to be licensed from Sun.
Dennis points out the following in his comment:
Thanks for pointing out that Sun has a patent license agreement that applies to the OOo format.
Actually, because of the Sun reciprocity requirement (although the Sun OASIS notice is pretty muddled and mixed up with the W3C approach in an ambiguous way), I think that would be a tough pill for Microsoft to swallow in supporting OOo directly in Microsoft Office. The Microsoft royalty-free license seems more straightforward in that regard.
It is true that there is a license behind the OpenDocument format that no one has really talked about. This link says it all: https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php. Have many folks explored what is behind this license and how compatible it is with existing licenses including the GPL? IBM also seems to be pushing Open Document as part of an pattern it has followed in which they use the open source community to drive its corporate agenda. What is IBM's position on IP rights?
[10-06-2005: since my original posting the content on the OASIS site has been updated to provide what looks to be a more clear covenant.]
3. The PDF format belongs to Adobe: how is it licensed?
The Massachusetts decision said they were backing OpenDocument and PDF. Both of which formats have IP and licensing issues that belong to an individual corporation (Sun and Adobe). I haven't found the license for PDF but it should be out there. Is the entire format licensed or only parts of it? I believe they have a patent note. Has anyone looked at it? If anyone has more information on that, it would be great to see. Please post in the comments. If you do find the PDF license, it would be great to hear which you would rather use, the Adobe license or the Microsoft license.
4. GPL has a number of compatibility issues.
SMC had a rather fun post too. Here's a clip from what he had to say:
As predicted, Microsoft set this up nicely to play the "victim" - "Oh, those horrible OpenSource zealots just don't want to give credit to us for our work! Is that such an unreasonable thing to want? This PROVES that GPL-users are rabid zealot un-American commies, and everyone should just quit using their stuff and instead promote licenses we can take from without any restrictions that prevent us from proprietizing their work."
I'm not sure who he is quoting, but I'll address it anyway :-) I don't see how this can be viewed as us playing "victim." I never even brought up the GPL issue until I got a ton a comments demanding an answer to the question. We designed the license as simply and straightforward as we could. We wanted to maintain our rights to our IP, while at the same time allowing everyone else to use it. We just wanted to keep our rights, and that's what the license is doing. It's saying that it's ours, but we provide you with a contract that allows you to freely use it.
There are tons of licenses out there that aren't compatible with the GPL. Here's a link to the ones they thought were most interesting to call out: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses. It is interesting for example to see that Apache’s license, the original BSD license, the Mozilla public license, the Netscape public license, the SUN public license, the PHP public license are all listed on the GNU site as Non-GPL compatible.
-Brian
Comments
- Anonymous
September 25, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
On point #1, it still doesn't address the issue. Certainly a license, once obtained, is perpetual. But the license itself also explicitly blocks me as a licensee from passing on that license along with my software. And nowhere does Microsoft guarantee that they'll perpetually grant new licenses to people who don't already hold them. This combination leads me to think, and one of the things I have to think is that nobody retains the ability to stop issuing licenses like that unless they feel they'll want to use that ability in the future. This is why the GPL has section 6 in it, to guarantee that software distributed under the GPL continues to be distributable under the GPL even if the original creator decides to change his mind later. The Microsoft license explicitly leaves that loophole open, and given Microsoft's past record when dealing with partners and standards I think it's understandable that a lot of people aren't comfortable without a guarantee in writing that not only will existing licenses be perpetual but that new licenses will be perpetually granted. If Microsoft intends to perpetually and unconditionally grant new licenses, then language similar to GPL section 6 would resolve the issue nicely. If Microsoft doesn't so intend, well, the problem for developers looking to add Office XML support to applications has already been described.
I think I have to ask my earlier question again: would Microsoft license a file format specification from, say, IBM under terms identical to the Office 2003 XML Reference Schema Patent License? - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
Comment to Ralph:
I saw that odd statement about system requirements too.
I think the problem is that some of the material was packaged in a license-wrapper. But the draft Office 12 ones are offered in two forms (an .exe that self-extracts a .chm, apparently) and a Zip file that has only XML and HTML inside. I would go get that one. Or is that still a barrier? - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
Questions to Todd:
I'm not sure what you mean. It is true that there is no sublicense on the copyright notice. But the statement at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odcXMLRef/html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp seems pretty clear and easy for anyone else to apply.
The page linked above specifies the notice that must be provided. If it is on your software and documentation, it is certainly something someone else could honor and perpetuate. But they too are taking out the license from Microsoft, not from you.
The patent license is described at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp and of course, it doesn't permit sublicensing either (I have never seen one that did). But it requires you to include a notice that lets anyone else find the license and use it themselves, again directly from Microsoft.
This strikes me as a pretty low-paperwork arrangement. Is this what you are refering to or do you see some other hindrance.
For me, with my open-source projects, I want a way to let people downstream know that some of the code is covered by potential patent claims and they need to be careful in repurposing that code (lest the essential claims provision be voided). That's a lot better than not letting them know, and of course there may still be patent claims from parties-unknown that we are not protected from at all. So the MS situation is no worse than infringing a patent we don't know about and potentially a lot cleaner than that.
Am I missing something in what you find objectionable? - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
More for Ralph:
I looked more carefully at everything that I downloaded and even the .exe files are actually self-extractors that WinZip will open directly. Usually there's just a .chm or a .doc inside.
I think the restriction on W2K SP3 and later is simply boilerplate. Those are the system requirements for Office 2003. I haven't found anything in the spec. package that actually requires that.
And the Open XML Format of Office 12 is going to be supported all the way back to Office 2000 with updates, so I think you're covered, don't you? - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
Brian,
you write "We designed the license as simply and straightforward as we could."
The license is indeed short, but it seems far from straightforward. Within its few paragraphs, it manages quite a few ambiguities and other infelicities...
For instance, it allows selling but forbids transfer of rights. Now, selling software usually involves transfer of rights (because, otherwise, what are you buying?), so these two clauses seem to contradict each other. Two could probably argue about which clause takes precedence, and at $2/minute each that argument would get expensive quickly.
As another example, speaking of lawyers, they seem to tend to interpret examples as being restricting - if you mention one thing as an example, it automatically excludes others. Now, the license mentions reading government documents. Does that exclude writing them? Does that exclude non-government documents? Does it cover just public records?
For that matter, does the mention of import exclude export?
There are others, and more qualified eyes than mine can find the more subtle problems that are hidden from me (IANAL). However, even just the above two would probably be killers for any implementation, proprietary or Open Source.
Jiri - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
The problem, orcmid, is that the first document you gave a link to only covers distribution of the specification, not distribution of implementations of the specifications. To use an implementation, you need a license for the patents. As the software creator I can't give you that license, since my license prohibits sub-licensing or transferring my license. Microsoft can't take away my license, but what happens if they discontinue the XML license entirely and grant <i>nobody</i> a new license on the needed patents? If they stop granting the license entirely, then the legal notice on the spec itself won't grant the patent license. I see nothing in the patent license itself that guarantees that they'll continue to grant those rights in the future, and therein lies the loophole.
Note that the same thing could happen to GPL'd software, if it weren't for section 6. As I noted, that was the motivation for section 6. - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
To orcmid:
I think that may be good news, but I need a little more information. You say you get a .exe file that is just a self extracting zip. That would be fine. I can handle that. But, all I seem to get is a .msi file, which I don't want. I do have 2 Windows 2000 machines left for legacy apps, but I should have said that I run Linux as my main desktop. I don't know what to do with a .msi file. Is there another download page than the one I mentioned above?
Good day,
Ralph - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
To orcmid:
If you don't want to see that startup notice, don't use Adobe PDF reader. I have not used it in years on Windows or Linux, because I don't believe their license is reasonable. On Windows, I use Ghostview and on Linux I use a variety of programs that work fine, but mostly evince.
Good day,
Ralph - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
"A few people raised concerns around Microsoft somehow being able to change the license or the formats no longer being accessible. The license actually is perpetual."
Congratulations, you have succeeded in missing the point, yet again.
Take this example situation :
Bob gets a licence from Microsoft for MSXML.
Bob makes MSXML documents.
Jane tries to get a licence for MSXML, but can't, because the licence offer has been removed / has been changed and no longer suitable / whatever.
Now, Jane can't read Bob's MSXML documents legally, even if Jane has exactly the same software used by Bob to make the documents.
That is why it is critical that sublicencing under the same terms be available - that way, Jane can get a licence to read the documents from Bob and / or the person who made the MSXML document producing software.
/sigh
echo "127.0.0.1 blogs.msdn.com" >> /etc/hosts - Anonymous
September 25, 2005
The real problem here is not the formats itself but it's the behavior of MS. Nobody has answered the question "why is MS having a knipshin fit over this"? Well Brian I am asking the question. Why are you guys so freaked out about standardizing on another format? While you are answering that also answer why virtually every single public pronouncement by MS has been full of outright lies.
MS has repeatedly tried to tell people that this is about MS standardising on open source, or OO, or claiming that it's not possible for MS to save documents in this format.
Brian, why should anybody believe anything you say. You work for MS, and MS employees lie (a lot!). Maybe you are an honest guy but you don't work for an honest company and that means people don't really take you on your word.
In the end it's all about trust isn't it? People don't trust you and if you were to be honest with yourself and us you would not blame them. - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
The mein problem is Microsoft and its behaviour in the past: they used the closed formats of their office suite (mainly MS-Word) to lock any competition out and at the same time lock their users in. They really used any evil trick in the book, especially making the format a moving target even going so far that compatibility between different versions of MS-Word is broken.
Now i ask you: why should anyone trust Microsoft not to pull something like that again with their brandnew format? If there's any loophole left i'm sure Microsoft would use it.
Sure, that may sound like "anti-Microsoftism" but it's really something Microsoft brought upon itself with their "Anti-Userism".
If MS wants they can create and maintain a proper interface to an existing Open Document standard. Microsoft should stop interpreting "compatibility" as "compatible to itself" and connect to something outside the Microsoft Universe. There's really no need to create their own new "open" standard and encumber it with their own license.
Sorry, i really don't trust Microsoft, they don't deserve it. - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
To Christian:
I don't think you will ever get a sublicensing agreement on a patent license that is predicated on essential/necessary claims. Check out the Sun license for the Open Office format and see where there is sublicensing. I don't see it.
Now, I do think that we are worrying about too many things that haven't happened (even in Microsoft past behavior, which was about licensing deals with OEMs, not IP license handling).
The notice that you are required to put in code that relies on the Microsoft royalty-free license includes a link to that license that anyone can obtain. That's how the license is passed down. You can be distrustful all you want, and welcome to it, but I can't imagine anyone making a better deal. (I can't find the actual offer from IBM anywhere, with regard to their licenses for Linux, only press releases. If someone can find out where they have license statements, I'd like to read them.)
Here's an example of a harder case. The OASIS Standard (their term) for SAML, the Security Assertion Markup Language, has a mandatory licensing requirement based on patent claims of RSA Security. For you to develop SAML protocol software that involves any RSA Security essential claims, you must have a written agreement with RSA. And you basically cannot offer the source code to anyone who hasn't entered into such an agreement. Now that's incompatible with the Open Source Definition for all recognized Open-Source licenses. I had thought to use SAML for an open-source community project, and now I won't be doing that. - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
To Ralph:
Oh, you're right. The Office 2003 Reference Schemas are in .msi files.
The downloads for newer information, including the preview Office 12 material, is all in .exe and .zip format.
I would go here,
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/downloads.mspx
and here,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=15805380-F2C0-4B80-9AD1-2CB0C300AEF9&displaylang=en
and that should be plenty for study if you don't have Office 2003 installed to experiment with the current formats. - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
You thought Massachussetts was bad?
Try 330000 PCs switching to open source!
http://allafrica.com/stories/200509220137.html
Keep Ballmer away from the chairs ;-) - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
Latest from Berlind.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1913#comments - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
ulicar: That's a valid point. I'm not sure there's a grand conspiracy going on with PDF as much as Adobe's massively greater resources. It doens't hurt that they have the jump on all other implementors by virtue of controlling the standard, though, or that they can simply update the standard to reflect what they've achieved in their latest implementation.
There are a few shady areas in PDF. The "enable Adobe Reader's limited editing mode / annotation" magic seems to be one of them as far as I can tell. I haven't looked into this directly and would need to speak to others to get details.
Mostly, though, I think it's just a case of a big, complex standard that's really hard to implement completely. There are whole classes of information that free viewers are only starting to handle now, even though they've been around since PDF 1.3 or earlier. Embedded colour profiles, forms, JavaScript support, etc etc etc.
Most advanced PDF tools, such as Enfocus PitStop, seem to build on top of Adobe's PDF libraries or on top of Acrobat Pro. The complexity of the standard is likely to be a large part of why.
The MS Office XML format will probably be the same, ie protected more than anything by its complexity and by Microsoft's control of it. That's part of why I don't understand why MS isn't giving a fully open patent grant. They control the format, and they'll always have the most complete, up-to-date and accurate implementation. What more do they need? How can a flat patent grant, or a more flexible license, hurt them - especially when the current one is so close anyway?
Again, the MS Office XML format will also have some shady corners and binary magic, as you alluded to. Such things will make other viewers/editors less complete than the MS ones. I don't agree that that makes them useless, any more than GSView is useless because it doens't support JavaScript or PDF forms. The vast majority of PDF documents neither have, nor need, those features - and I think the same will be true of MS Office XML.
I can only wonder if the worry is that, like PDF, most users only use a tiny subset of the available features, and would be happy with much less complete, lower cost implementations. If so, I'm not convinced that'll be a real problem. I've been using the wonderful GhostScript tool to make and process PDF for years, but still do most PDF production at work with Adobe Acrobat. Why? Because you do want those extras just often enough, and because for a business it's often worth paying more for the "authoriative" version. I mostly use GhostScript to handle jobs that Acrobat can't cope with, or do tasks it lacks the required features for. Business has hardly dried up for Adobe, despite many free and low cost alternative PDF processors and generators, more than a few built-in to applications. I suspect much of the business of the lower-cost competitors is with people who would never buy more expensive the Adobe product even if there were no alternative products to choose.
I would expect the same to be true for MS - lots of use of their libraries and APIs to handle the formats, them retaining the dominant and most complete implementation, and people preferring the MS version to the alternatives even with its greater cost.
I know I would. For work, I'd continue to use OpenOffice.org for users with very basic needs for whom the AU$260 per seat for MS Office Basic (OEM) is excessive, and I'd continue to buy MS Office for those who needed more.
Anyway, I'm not going to speculate any more on Microsoft's strategy or the complexities behind the market here. I think I've made my point. - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 26, 2005
Geez Brian. I think Eduardo is showing his hand when he said "people have learned through hard experience that they can't trust Microsoft, even when it puts something in writing.". Basically, he's echoing what many comment writers here are thinking - they are just here to argue with you and aren't interested in the outcome since as he said there is nothing you or me or MS can say or write that will satisfy them.
There are clearly other more open-minded people reading this blog. Why not post about what our motivations are for doing a perpetually available license and open format? Once people can see why it is in our own self-interest to do this they might be able to make more sense of it and understand why the follow-on improvements also have to be covered by the license rather than assuming we are doing this because we were "forced" to or some other nonsense... - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
Chris_Prately: Eduardo is being a bit blunt about it, but he does have a point. After all, see Microsoft's handling of the Kerberos standard as the most recent example. That aside, there are a few other things that frankly I haven't seen Brian address and, like you, I'd like to see addressed:
a) The license isn't perpetually available, or at least it doesn't say it is. Licenses once issued are perpetual, yes, but nothing in writing says the license will be available to new licensees forever. This is especially of concern since users will apparently need the license to use any patents in an implementation, and the license explicitly blocks any ways of obtaining the needed license except from Microsoft. Microsoft themselves have direct experience with a situation where their users needed patent licenses but Microsoft couldn't provide them, so the company certainly can't plead ignorance of the consequences here.
b) The license doesn't say it's automatically going to cover extensions. In fact, it seems to say exactly the opposite. It may not even cover what's already there, since for example "general word processing... features and functionality" are specifically excluded from what's covered under the patent license.
c) The clarification regarding use for government documents restricts itself only to reading those documents. It makes no mention of being able to create documents. This is a concern since citizens are going to have to create documents to send to government agencies. Microsoft obviously put some thought into the clarification, so the limitation does stand out a bit.
d) People are concerned that, because of things like the above that constitute a door that Microsoft seems to have reserved the right to close at any time, the Office XML "standard" may not be truly open at all. It appears open, but it can be closed off at any time. Just as, for example, Microsoft tried to use the open Kerberos standard as an enticement but then closed it off with a mandatory Microsoft-proprietary extension that rendered all non-Microsoft clients unable to authenticate against a Microsoft server, and then ostensibly made the specifications for the extensions open, but hedged obtaining them with license conditions that would prevent the majority of Kerberos client implementations (including the Kerberos reference implementation itself) from actually implementing the extensions. Given the first two points, what concrete reasons has Microsoft given for the rest of us to believe that it won't behave the way it previously has when it comes to open standards?
I don't see these points as hard to address. For example, point A could be addressed easily by either making a written commitment in the license to it being perpetually available to new licensees, or actually making the license grant self-executing in a manner similar to the GPL Section 6. Assuming that Microsoft really does intend the license to be perpetually available, committing to that in writing shouldn't be that onerous a thing. - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
Chris, you say that people would trust Microsoft if it just explained its motives.
That's not true. Microsoft explained to the Kerberos committee that it was motivated to keep Kerberos open, and it explained to Sun it was motivated to make a cross-platform version of Java, and in both cases it turned out it was lieing. People have learned to mistrust Microsoft when it talks about its motives.
Microsoft has getting away with telling lies for so long that it just can't understand that people have finally caught on. Microsoft is very out of touch with how the IT community, or at least a large portion of it, has come to mistrust and resent it.
If Microsoft really wants people to trust it, then it should make the sorts of changes that posters have suggested, such as making Office XML truly open, including a patent grant. - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
Marc Wagner on the controversy:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1915 - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
I respond to your comments about Sun's alleged IP here: http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink?entry=fud_and_the_lost_argument
To summarise: the statement at OASIS does not indicate that Sun is asserting IP. It dates from before OASIS had a royalty free IP policy and it merely indicates that if Sun /did/ find it had IP it would license it royalty free, in the way that's generally accepted by companies engaging in standards bodies. Your headline assertion number 2 is thus dead wrong.
And it's insulting. Only a person who has not participated in, or has no interest in, or does not know the first thing about, or is trying to deceive others about, open standards can imagine that in this day and age, after two years of participating in an open standards development process, bringing a specification all the way to an accepted Standard, a company can in fact say "hey, we never disclosed this but wouldn't you know... we do have essential claims and now you have to get a license from us!".
To do so would be deeply dishonourable, and your implication that Sun's staff would do this is an insult. - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
Simon, about companies concealing IP in open standards? I just have one name to say: Rambus. Sun may not play that game, but it's not such an unthinkable thing. - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
Speaking of fiduciary duty. How has that share price been doing over the last say, five years? To be honest, this seems to be more of a battle of ego rather than fiduciary duty on Microsoft’s part.
Those marketing to revenue numbers have not really been looking too good. Maybe Microsoft should focuses on letting developers build a better product, letting the customer decide which they prefer. Rather than allowing legal and marketing to design the product and then preventing customers from leaving.
As an aside, most of the developers I have meet have been good people trying to do a good job. The dis-connect is happening farther up the chain of command. - Anonymous
September 27, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 28, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 28, 2005
"Mr Ringer wrote
Unlike copyright, patent rights apply even if the codebase has nothing in common with the patent holder's, and in fact the patent holder needn't have written anything. The infringing organization need not even be aware the patent rights exist for their original work to infringe. I don't think it'll be a real world issue, of course, but forking wouldn't help if it became one."
And that is why Software should not be patented. If someone could do the same thing in a different way then they can still infringe a patent for doing that one thing. Copyrigh is good for the life of the author + 75 years. Why is copyright not good enough to to protect the work. Patents are only good for 20 years and no one can create the same thing without being sued even if there way is better. So you create with patents a way to lock out all other inventions that could be better. A company cannot have (IP Intellectual Property) because a company is not and Individual than can think on it's own.
Intellectual In`tellec"tual (?; 135), a. L. intellectualis:
cf. F. intellectuel.
1913 Webster
1. Belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental; as,
intellectual powers, activities, etc.
1913 Webster
Logic is to teach us the right use of our reason or
intellectual powers. --I. Watts.
1913 Webster
2. Endowed with intellect; having the power of understanding;
having capacity for the higher forms of knowledge or
thought; characterized by intelligence or mental capacity;
as, an intellectual person.
1913 Webster - Anonymous
September 28, 2005
B. Moore: Honestly, that's not a discussion I think is best held here. I'm personally disinclined to argue, but no matter what position you take it won't help with the issues at hand. - Anonymous
September 29, 2005
Thanks for all the comments. There are a couple I want to get to and address, but I probably won't have a chance until next week.
In the mean time, I did get a chance to write a bit on why we are moving to open formats.
I can understand from folks that it may be difficult to see why we would open up our formats and that leads to a lack of trust. Hopefully after reading through the post you'll see that we really do have strong needs to move to an open format, and we'll continue that forward in future versions: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/09/29/475340.aspx
-Brian - Anonymous
September 30, 2005
Problem number two seems to be pretty much cleared now:
Sun has given a blanket, irrevocable, global, non time-limited patent protection on any ODF implementation:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/ipr.php
archive/2005/09/25/473815.aspxhttp://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink?entry=raising_the_bar_on_patents - Anonymous
September 30, 2005
Your #2 just became a non-issue.
That's one thing I love about the OSS/Software Libre community: Someone pushes some FUD and in a few days someone's found it, responded to it, and refuted it. - Anonymous
September 30, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
September 30, 2005
I missed the Simon Phipps comment here. Now I get it.
Simon, I agree, the Item 2 title is misleading. However, the content is a fairly accurate statement, whether or not you consider the IPR statement an implied license or not.
I'm sorry you were so insulted that you then extrapolated Brian's mistatement to an implication of misconduct by someone asserting IP after the fact of a community specification being prepared and adopted. I don't see anything in discussions here that justifies that leap.
Brian's links are to the IPR as it existed before the additional statement by Sun this week. The original statement is still there.
I think the error is in saying "having to ask Sun for a license." The IPR makes for an automatic license, for all practical purposes. This is easy to clarify. I don't get any of the innuendos that you and maybe others took from Brian's statement. And he did point right to the IPR.
As I said, I'm sorry you were insulted, because I was part of that conversation and because I feel you over-reacted about allegations by Brian that are simply not in evidence. - Anonymous
October 01, 2005
"We designed the license as simply and straightforward as we could. We wanted to maintain our rights to our IP, while at the same time allowing everyone else to use it."
So does the GNU GPL.
"We just wanted to keep our rights, and that's what the license is doing. It's saying that it's ours, but we provide you with a contract that allows you to freely use it."
What you mean is that you didn't want to give any more freedom than only the usage of the schema. So don't try to make it sound like you're nicer than you actually are...
"solely for the purpose of reading and writing files" - Anonymous
October 02, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
October 03, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
October 03, 2005
@ Craig Ringer
With your "fidicuary duty" argument you say that a corporation like Microsoft has to evaluate any thing they do from the profit angle: if it'll generate profit it's good and should be done, if it'll not generate profit or even make a loss it's bad and shouldn't be done.
Well, with that you've given the perfect reason why there are so many concerns that MS will slam the door on their "open" standard at some point in the future. If MS at some point things closing the standard will generate more profit they'll do that. According to you they have to.
It's also a perfect argument why legislation like in Massachusetts is necessary to enforce an open format because otherwise the openness of the format may at some point in time conflict with the "fidicuary duties". Now Massachusetts has given MS some good reasons to use a really open document standard. Other states should follow to give Microsoft some more reasons. - Anonymous
October 15, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
October 18, 2005
In a Swedish article [1], Jonas Persson, Microsoft, responds to some statements about OpenDocument. But he doesn't even seem to know what OpenDocument is...
"I think that this debate has quite a narrow outlook. It's about that everyone should use the same solution all the time, that everyone have the same needs. That's not the case."
So, isn't that the view Microsoft uses to have - everyone should use Microsoft Word! But using OpenDocument, there are alternatives, there's not just OpenOffice.org.
"We have xml that is the best standard in the world. With descriptions of how xml data is stored, it's easy to fetch data. We publish all information about our xml formats and license them them free of cost."
Also OpenDocument uses XML, and the format is published. The license of Microsoft's XML formats might be free of cost, but they aren't "free as in free speach". The license says: "You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights." This means that you can not distribute a program using these schemata under the GPL.
"In the future you will want to mix text, sound, images and other data. Will that be best done with a single format like Opendocument or with an extendable format like xml, for which you can describe the extensions?"
Once again, Jonas seems not to know that OpenDocument uses XML.
[1] http://www.idg.se/ArticlePages/200510/14/20051014084347_CS/20051014084347_CS.dbp.asp