re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

scot — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:08:07 GMT

This seems like great PR (the Q&A) but not necessarily a great foundation for a business to rely on. I openly applaud Microsoft's move towards openness but if this was a competitive move i don't think it will really work. This standard is being fast tracked to move through an openly permissive standards body, then hopefully to the ISO.

Step back for a second and think about if you were a CIO, why would you move your business to this standard. If you could move to another that is being maintained in a transparent way by a large group with an interest in long term storage and development, with multiple implementers and allot more support. (if you had a choice) And the guarantee that this format won't change upon one companies needs.

It is great that office 12 will have more open formats, but the fact that it is moving through a permissive standards organization and can change the deal at any point, which also would change the covenant when ever Microsoft is ready to iterate sends a lot of bad signals to me.

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

Alex — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:35:29 GMT

It's a bit of a shame that Microsoft have decided to use this opportunity to take pot-shots rather than engage in debate. For example, MS chides OASIS for not making material changes to the ODF specification as submitted: even if that's true, MS are doing exactly the same thing, and have written as such into the charter!

It would be good if MS, rather than making brash statements, showed exactly where in the ODF spec. problems exist: what makes ODF less backward-compatible than MS XML, for example? Where is the loss of fidelity?

Alternatively, make the MS XML specifications available for download in some convenient format? Then others can do the analysis. (some information, I don't know how complete, it available in pieces in the MSDN, and the download it refers to is an MSI file from January).

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

Ben — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:52:52 GMT

Thanks for getting these answers out there, Brian.

According to Andy Updegrove the characterization of the OASIS ODF process is almost entirely false. See the end of this post:
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?ID=1825

Also, the specific objections to ODF don't seem to make much sense. Why can't backward compatibility be achieved with extensions to ODF? I don't know what "Intrinsic support for integrating customer-defined XML data" means other than extensions to the schema and any XML schema can be extended. ODF is also well-tested and is actually used in a shipping product. If Office XML really parses faster than ODF then I guess that's nice but is it worth splintering formats over? Why not propose performance improvements to ODF through the standards process?

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

AC — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:34:20 GMT

"If any parties prefer, we will make available the existing open and royalty free license as an alternative."

Choice quote there as it illustrates the problem of Microsoft deciding to revoke the license and the users being screwed (perpetual, but not necessarily perpetually available).

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

AC — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:37:21 GMT

"If someone wants to build a solution that works with our formats, they are free to do so without worrying about patents or licenses associated with our formats."

Well that's true if their only worry is being sued. What if they're worried about producing a legal product. You say you won't sue the developers, but that doesn't mean they didn't do something illegal.

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

AC — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 03:39:22 GMT

"The key is that this is an assurance that no one will be sued for using intellectual property in the specifications as they are written."

Hence no assurance for those not having adhered to the specifications as decided by a judge in a court at a time of your choosing?

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

omz — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:31:57 GMT

>Well that's true if their only worry is being >sued. What if they're worried about producing a >legal product.
i agree with that ...
the "Office 2003 XML Reference Schema Patent License" ( http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp ) reads:
"...You are not licensed to sublicense or transfer your rights."
so, a developer who distribute his MSXML reader/writer using the GPL license is doing something ILEGAL ( i dont like that ... Covenant not to sue or not CNS )

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

Chris Nokleberg — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 08:26:42 GMT

Hi Brian,

As it is not clear from the Q&A, when will the next version of the file format schema and documentation be available for public review? Will draft versions be made public as part of the ECMA process, or from Microsoft directly?

Thanks,
Chris

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

S. Colcord — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 22:45:57 GMT

Hi Brian,

Unfortunately, this FAQ does not address any of the questions I previously raised (<http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/11/22/495876.aspx#499028>).

In general, the FAQ seems to be attempting to explain Microsoft's motivations; most of the questions begin with "Why...". I suspect that relatively few people are interested in such explanations, since they have no legal significance.

The questions I linked above pertained to specific legal ramifications of the covenant that would impact non-Microsoft developers. Other lawyers have ventured opinions on these issues, but an official opinion from Microsoft on the matter would be far more meaningful.

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

Matt — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 01:25:43 GMT

S. Colcord,

The Q&A does address your subset question... it says subsets and supersets are okay to use...

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

S. Colcord — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 06:17:57 GMT

Matt:

On a reread, I'll agree with you; I missed it because it was under a subsection of "Why did Microsoft take this approach?", rather than a Question in its own right. There is still a bit more legal wiggle-room than some might prefer in the definition of "Conformant" (There needs to be an easy way for a developer to tell whether they have a Conformant subset or an incompatible alteration; the former appears to be covered, the latter not), but the intent seems reasonably clear.

I'd still like to see FAQs covering what happens if ISO updates the spec (with or without Microsoft involvement), and what happens if Microsoft transfers its patents to another entity, one without such a Covenant.

re: Congratulations, Mr. Technical Architect

orcmid — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:32:41 GMT

Thanks to Bob Sutor's blog, I just found the official ECMA announcement and the submitted drafts: http://www.ecma-international.org/activities/Office%20Open%20XML%20Formats/">http://www.ecma-international.org/activities/Office%20Open%20XML%20Formats/ (This is also linked from the bottom of http://www.ecma-international.org/activities/)

You've been very busy, with more to go. It is valuable to have materials available so early. It is a little daunting to see that you are already at 2000 pages with the expectation of triple that by the time it is suitable for use as the specification of a standard.

Are you going to create a forum for technical comment so that those of us who read through the documents with beginners' eyes can submit anything odd that we notice?

re: Oh, about that "OpenXML"

orcmid — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 22:19:34 GMT

I see, above, that I derailed your blog's URL-recognizer. With no preview, who knew?

While I'm passing by, I thought I'd point out that I stumble every time I see "OpenXML" used the way it appears on the FAQ about the ECMA submission and the intention of the covenant not to sue. Although it is simple and valuable for that, I think using the term when only discussing the Office Open XML format reaches too far and will be more of a lightning rod than useful.

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

Stephane Rodriguez — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 23:23:12 GMT

The ECMA TC45 specs blows the O12 schema preview doc out of the water. I don't understand how Microsoft even considered the fact they would post something as useless as the O12 schema preview. In fact, I think the ECMA TC45 specs *IS* the doc spec, period.

Thumb up to Massachusetts, they've got MS to publish the specs.

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

BrianJones — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 02:57:54 GMT

Chris - I just posted about the documentation here: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/12/19/505675.aspx
We'll continue to update the documentation directly through the Ecma work.

S. Colard, the "conformant" piece is just saying that if you do something outside of the spec, then it can't be covered because it isn't something Microsoft has defined, it's something you've defined. The pieces within the spec are covered of course, but anything outside is something that we don't have control over. How could we?

Orcmid - Thank you on the congratulations :-) We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but it's really exciting stuff.
I know the 2000 pages a bit overwhelming, but you have to realize that the document covers all three application formats, which have been evolving over the past 20 years (so you can expect there to be a lot of information). The initial 200 pages are the glue though that brings all the reference material together and should help make it much easier to follow.

Stephane, I'm glad you like it :-) I know that the previews were really rough, but we wanted to get some information out there early, even if it wasn't in the best state. The Ecma spec will continue to get much more clear over the coming months as we work on it in TC45. I'm really excited about the quality of document we're going to have for everyone.

-Brian

re: More answers to questions around standardization and licensing

S. Colcord — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:53:47 GMT

Brian Jones wrote:
"the "conformant" piece is just saying that if you do something outside of the spec, then it can't be covered because it isn't something Microsoft has defined, it's something you've defined. The pieces within the spec are covered of course [...]"

Hi Brian,

If that's true, this concern is moot. The following example would serve as a good illustration:

A developer ("Bob") implements an office suite, and decides to use OpenXML for the data storage, but tweaks it to suit his particular needs, calling the resulting format BobsOpenXML. By what you stated above, Bob's changes can't be covered, because they aren't something Microsoft has defined, but the pieces of BobsOpenXML that came from the OpenXML spec are covered by the Covenant. Correct?

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