Microsoft pries open Office 2003

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Put Up or Shut Up?

Put up or shut up?

Ax:?Open source has been screaming, ranting, and whining that the ONLY reason people use MS Office is that they are locked in to it. With this move MS is calling their bluff, making the format available, and in effect telling the open source crowd to either put up or shut up.?

Open Source has responded to the global needs of users and developers with a galaxy of open XML technologies that include file formats, parsing methods, and processing tools. Microsoft is having to respond with this licensing scheme exactly because users and developers have found in OSS an alternative source of solutions. One that adheres to the integration and interoperability principles of open interfaces, open standards, open connectivity and communications protocols, and open XML Technologies. These principles of complete transparency return information ownership to users. And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about.

Microsoft isn't playing the role of benevolent dictator here. It's more like they're a reluctant monarch compromising with the force of a public uprising that threatens their reign.

Read the article: ?Microsoft said it is taking the action in response to requests from its software partners as well as from corporate and government customers who demanded a way to better interoperate with Microsoft's dominant suite of desktop applications.?

So what ?bluff? is Microsoft calling here? Do you really think Ax that Microsoft offered this rather restrictive license in response to Open Source whining? Or did they offer it in response to users demands? Play the tape!

Microsoft's own statements clearly indicate that the ?users? aren't bluffing. Users are demanding to take ownership of their information. Ownership that doesn't entail layers of permissions and licensing from Redmond.

Personally i don't care if Microsoft's XML is a proprietary bastardization of open sourced open standards. But when they try to cloak that bastardization as a truly ?open? implementation, the deceit has to be pointed out. To discover the truth, one has to make comparisons to truly open XML technology implementations. And, as the facts reveal themselves, one also has to discuss the motives for deceit. The patterns of past behavior are the best indicators of future actions. As long as the marketplace has full disclosure, i really don't care what they choose. Getting to the truth about Microsoft's business practices is, however, a challenge.

With all the hoopla of ?We be open too? hype, many are turning to the Danish licensing agreement for the facts. And what we're finding isn't pretty. Instead of locking users into Microsoft only applications by means of a binary format, the new scheme (pardon the pun) seems to be to lock users into MS applications by way of threatening patent infringement law suites for those who would dare read, write, parse, process and transform any file containing the license. Which, it would appear to be, applies to any information file that has somehow passed though an XP desktop or XP server side process.

?No right to create modifications or derivatives of this Specification is granted herein.

There is a separate patent license available to parties interested in implementing software programs that can read and write files that conform to the Specification. This patent license is available at this location?: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpatentlicense.asp.


Note this requirement: ?Permission to copy, display and distribute the contents of this document (the ?Specification?), in any medium for any purpose without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you include the following notice on ALL copies of the Specification, or portions thereof, that you make?:

The inclusion of the notice invokes the patent claims, which, if Microsoft desires, can invoke draconian DMCA laws.

At least with the binary file format, the rights, permissions, and privileges involved with any information exchange process were locked up front. The new XML license model threatens to usher in an era of ?Show us your papers? gestapo techniques. As flows of information files are processed, users will have to have their legal advisers checking to see if they have the proper Redmond permissions and processing tools in place to work that information.

This seems to be a rather legally innovative use of both the patent laws, and the DMCA, ?Digital Millennium Copyright Act?.

What Microsoft might be saying here is that XP Office System information files are subject to the same DMCA laws governing multi media content such as movies and music. Meaning, i can purchase or download a song, but i can only listen to it on RIAA approved devices.

Microsoft seems to be saying that if my information is in their XML file format, or even passes through one of their platform processing systems (InfoPath), where it picks up the ?viral license?, then i can only read, write, parse, and transform that information using exclusively the software programs that they approve.

This draconian level of permission based computing is far beyond anything previously imagined. The MS binary files were not able similarly infect an entire information infrastructure anywhere close to what this latest scheme promises.

Clearly the Danish Government army of lawyers negotiated this license in good faith. Clearly they sought to take ownership of both their information, and their information processing. It looks to me though that they have snookered.

Hardly the first time someone legally negotiating in good faith has been taken to the cleaners by Chairman Bill.

~ge~

Posted by: gary_edwards   Posted on: 11/18/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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