Open Specification Promise

Microsoft Calls IBM's bluff on patent pledges

James Governor's MonkChips — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:21:56 GMT

Microsoft Open Specification Promise What can I say about Microsoft's decison to offer a patent covenant around web services and identity protocols? Not much that hasn't been said already by people smarter than me. Neil Macehiter from MWD: "I think..

Microsoft promises not to sue you

Open Sources — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:47:23 GMT

Jason Matusow, contrary to popular belief, is not dead. He's actually alive (or his ghost writer is), because he just made a whopping two posts on his blog. I think Jason is one of the most intelligent guys in the...

re: Open Specification Promise

Dave — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:55:41 GMT

By itself, this Promise is positive. What still concerns me, however, is that MS doesn't actively support open source projects for .NET even when those projects do not compete with MS software and when those projects add value to the entire .NET developer community. I still see evidence of Microsoft’s willingness to apply its embrace, extend, exterminate mentality to the .NET open source community. When that attitude is completely gone, then I will feel really good about Microsoft again.

re: Open Specification Promise

jasonmatusow — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 06:28:57 GMT

Dave - great comment. I think there are some great examples of our supporting .NET-based open source projects. Check out the DOTNETNUKE project. That was a project that started out based on approximately 11KLOC of MS Shared Source-licensed code and was grown into a 25KLOC app done by a single dev. Then, open sourced under BSD licensing (which was allowed by the Shared Source license), and now is >180KLOC done through community development on SOurceForge. Interestingly in that project, MS does not contribute to it directly, but the project leads get architectural guidance etc. from the ASP.NET core dev team. It is a solid example of what we should do more of in the hybrid world. There are >600 community development projects using MS technologies and many more than that on SourceForge using VisualStudio as the dev tool set for OSS development. I'd like to see more of this from us as it makes all the sense in the world.

Anyway - thx for the comment, I'd encourage you to get on the .NET dev forums and talk about this more. Also, go check out Channel9 as it may have more useful info for you as well.

Jason

re: Open Specification Promise

Dave — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 17:47:26 GMT

Jason - great points about DotNetNuke and the other Visual Studio-based open source projects. Your comment inspired me to write another article on my blog. I would love to hear your feedback. And I will take your advice and discuss this on the various dev forums I'm involved with. Thanks.

Should Microsoft Financially Support Open Source Projects?

you've been HAACKED — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 03:21:19 GMT

Should Microsoft Financially Support Open Source Projects?

Property and Salvage in IP

Wesley Parish — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:51:04 GMT

I have been wondering, off and on, on various sites, just how far the "property" analogy in the phrase "Intellectual Property Rights" goes.

It is well known that various companies - Microsoft, Sun and IBM amongst them - have championed this analogy, and championed it quite strenuously.

But, since software is now the enabling agent for much of the world's commerce, I'm interested in finding out just how seriously such companies take this "property" analogy - since there is quite a lot of property law currently applicable to maritime commerce that might well be applicable to software. In particular, salvage law.

A lot of salvage law is aimed at preventing derelict vessels becoming a danger on the high seas and sea roads. That is why salvage awards can be so high - there has to be a decent remuneration for efforts to salvage derelict vessels during storms, etc.

F/LOSS appears to handle that organically by design - anyone making suitable corrections for bugs in the source code, gets attribution and respect. In other words, they get an ownership part in the source tree.

I'd be interested in your opinions on Microsoft's and others' efforts and otherwise to salvage derelict MS software, considering that as the most common malware platform, it's now a major danger to international commerce.

re: Open Specification Promise

jasonmatusow — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 06:20:34 GMT

Wesley -
This issue of "property" as a descriptor for software needs to be looked at in a few different ways (IMHO). The fact is, the law considers it property and not just in the U.S. but in many, many countries. So anyone acting in a commercial manner with software should take full advantage of that standing - including those in the F/LOSS community. Software of course seems to possibly embody all forms of IP - in source form (copyright), binary form (patent), representation (trade mark), and provided you work to do so you can argue that the process to build it, the tools used, sequencing, etc. are all possible industrial secrets (trade secret).

As for salvage law - I've never considered it before. I'll chat with some folks and see what I can learn on that front.

As for your conflation of the problem of malware and IP - I don't get it. Malware is focused on the most popular platform for the sole reason that it represents the juiciest target. If Apple takes a bigger bite of the user-base pie - they will become a more attractive target no matter what their commercials say. Linux - same thing. The actions of people with malicious intent have NOTHING to do with IP.

Jason

re: Open Specification Promise

Dave — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 01:27:21 GMT

Jason, the article on my blog triggered a couple other articles that might interest you.

Here are the links:

http://dotnetnuke.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/825/EntryID/1129/Default.aspx

http://haacked.com/archive/2006/09/16/Should_Microsoft_Financially_Support_Open_Source_Projects.aspx

There are some new comments on my article that help clarify some of the points I wanted to make. Here is that link again:
http://blog.davestechshop.net/archive/2006/09/16/MicrosoftShouldSupportOpenSource.aspx

Thanks for your interest in this topic.

:: Bullet Points :: » Novell OpenOffice, MS Open XML to Work Together

:: Bullet Points :: » Novell OpenOffice, MS Open XML to Work Together — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:09:25 GMT

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re: Open Specification Promise

salvage cars — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:13:43 GMT

It isn't entirely a joke (or a fair statement) that Microsoft has become a legal department traveling as a software company. Yet there are some upsides. One is that some very smart lawyers at a very large company have had to engage Reality through company technologists brave and determined enough to engage the open source community in constructive collaboration.

Cossacks Breaking News » Updated: Microsoft clarifies its promise not to sue for OOXML

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:59:02 GMT

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Cossacks Breaking News » Updated: Microsoft clarifies its promise not to sue for OOXML

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:04:17 GMT

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Copyright Revewals » Matusow’s Blog : Open Specification Promise

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