Microsoft Releases Pre-2007 Binary File Format Specs

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has released the specifications for the binary file formats used by pre-2007 Microsoft Office applications. They're accurate this time! Honest! While the documents are enormous (Word alone requires 533 pages; Excel runs over 1000 plus another 850 pages for the Office 2007 binary format), they hopefully will be useful to developers trying to create or extract information from Microsoft Office files (which despite their flaws, have been the de facto standard in many fields for some time now)."

,,, or undo file corruption?

I know it's old hat by now, but back in the Office 98 days, file corruption was a big deal.

I wonder what was going on, but it occurs to me that now I could concievably actually back out
the errors, and figure the thing out.

So that's only about 2400 pages!

A far cry from the 6,000 pages for OOXML ..

How freaking "open" of them...

...to finally share proper doc of the old standards. This just means they feel confident that MS Office 2007 will take firm enough root to ensure that the old game of catch up for FOSS projects will stay the same.
And wasn't it just yesterday some twits had an artice about how MS is changing/will change? I sure wouldn't hold my breath!

Re:How freaking "open" of them...

Not that Open...

Some of the Microsoft protocols include patented inventions, and others do not. You may benefit from a patent license if you are distributing implementations of these protocols commercially or if you use an implementation of any of the protocols covered by Microsoft patents. For more information, contact the Microsoft Open Protocols Team.

Check out the patent maps here [microsoft.com]

Re:How freaking "open" of them...

To be fair, the article also adds:

It is important to note that open source developers, whether commercial or non-commercial, will not need a patent license for the development of implementations of these protocols or for the non-commercial distribution of these implementations, according to Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Open Source Developers.

Re:How freaking "open" of them...

It is important to note that open source developers, whether commercial or non-commercial, will not need a patent license for the development of implementations of these protocols or for the non-commercial distribution of these implementations,

So...commercial developers can develop as long as they don't distribute. Boy, that's helpful/useful. About as helpful and useful as a kick in the nuts. :)

I still say the idea that a protocol can be patented is silly to the point of almost being an oxymoron. We can, perhaps, debate whether an implementation of a protocol can be patented, but the idea that the protocol itself can be patented seems like blatant abuse of the patent system, even if you're one of those who believes that software or business-method patents are a valid notion.

Fortunately, it does seem to be getting easier to challenge patents. Now if only we could get MS to admit what patents they think various open source projects might be violating, so we can start the search for prior art.... :)

(Alternatively, maybe we can keep them muttering vague threats about their patents without being specific long enough that we can ask for estoppel or laches if they ever do try to get specific. The rumblings help because that way they can't pretend that they didn't know about the supposed violations all along, a vital point in raising a defense of laches.)

Re:How freaking "open" of them...

Yeah, but at least they offer the appearance of wanting to feel like changing...

Re:How freaking "open" of them...

If they keep hold of the spec and don't release it, you'll bitch about them not being very friendly.

If they release the spec to everyone and promise not to go after any Open Source projects that may take advantage of it, you'll bitch about them still trying to line their own pockets.

Really, Microsoft has no chance of pleasing you, do they? Just accept that it's good for everyone to have open standards, regardless of the possible ulterior motives involved.

Re:How freaking "open" of them...

Really, Microsoft has no chance of pleasing you, do they? Just accept that it's good for everyone to have open standards, regardless of the possible ulterior motives involved.

The point is that MS's patent licenses (and therefore their specs), due to the non-commerce clause, are not GPL compatible. See, MS is not threatened by a BSD license, because if a BSD product takes off, they can just embrace, extend, extinguish. They're really worried about GPL though, because any GPL project that succeeds is a true competitive threat.

In short, I don't think they've opened the specs. Documented them, yes, published them, sure, but they have NOT opened them.

interesting...

Did anyone else notice this is coming out on the first business day at MS that is Gates free...?

Re:interesting...

This isn't new. MS posted an earlier revision on February 20 this year. Today's announcement is mostly about the fact that it's out of "beta".

Re:interesting...

Indeed. This is a strange new move by the borg.

This reminds me the episode of House M.D. when he started acting nice one day and everyone began freaking out.

You should chill out and think of this being more of a partial victory than an enemy's plan.

I think the real question

is WHEN are they going to release the source code to the Flight Sim in Excel 98?

Re:I think the real question

That's actually hidden in the released documents. You have to go to a specific page of the Excel portion, and by starting at a specific line and skipping the correct numbers of lines between read lines, the spec will be revealed. The exact details are left as an exercise for the morbidly curious.

Honest Attempt

I honestly believe that they are trying to give out complete information. It's just that they have 20 years of spaghetti code to somehow shape into an API document. I doubt if anyone at Microsoft really knows how the code works.

With a 1000 page document describing how to list off spreadsheet information, I shudder to think about how organized their kernel is.

Re:Honest Attempt

Read this article:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/02/19.html [joelonsoftware.com]

Summarizing how Office file formats were made super complex without anybody necessarily doing anything wrong, or anybody writing bad code.

Kudos to them

I can't understand the negativity. Sure Microsoft has an unpleasant past, but this is a good move on their part and should be met with nothing less than praise.

We want to encourage more behavior like this.

Yes, kudos for this ... but not for MS's past

I can't understand the negativity. Sure Microsoft has an unpleasant past, but this is a good move on their part and should be met with nothing less than praise.
We want to encourage more behavior like this.

You are right. This is a great step forward. However, I think the Slashdot community, with its cynical eye on Microsoft, is reminding us to take this in the proper context. It remains to be seen whether this is the beginning of a slow but steady change of course for the world's largest software company, or whether this is a fake-out to fool people into thinking that Microsoft is nice.

Personally, I suspect that this reflects internal conflict within Microsoft, with some portions of the behemoth trying to do something good, while another faction still trying to squeeze money out of Microsoft's unique position in the software world.

In any case, remember how some people would say, "You always complain about Microsoft! What would it take for you to admit that Microsoft is doing something good?"

#2 on the list was: Stop hijacking the HTML standard and make a compliant browser! Then they put out IE7. (Not perfect, but a heckuva lot better than IE6!)

#1 on the list was: Open up the Word document file format. Okay, so they've done that. (Again, not perfect, but a heckuva lot better than what went on before!)

Congrats, Microsoft. You did it. A little late in coming, and you really didn't impress us with your OOXML fiasco waving that money around, but I'm willing to adopt a wait-and-see attitude to see whether it's still those same money-grubbing upper level managers that are in control, or whether this really is a new day at Microsoft.

Chicken and Egg

The only problem? They released them in Word format...

(Okay, not really -- someone must have realized that that would be silly.)

Holy Crap!

Or is it Wholly Crap?

I guess we'll see. I'm rather shocked by this. This is a kind of "giving in" gesture that is MOST uncharacteristic of Microsoft. Is this was the "Post-Gates" Microsoft will be like? How much more cooperative spirit will the community enjoy?

Visio

Where is Visio ?

It's a Trap!

20 years ago, at what was the world's largest software project, we used to joke that if we wanted to ruin our competition, we would send them a copy of our specs. It looks to me that Microsoft got the same idea.

Meh.. /.-ers

for all those thinking that this has anything to do with Gates leaving - you're wrong, its neither right nor interesting AND CERTAINLY NOT 5+ INSIGHTFUL.
Microsoft releases api/ protocol specs | Feb. 2008
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/21/microsoft_goes_open/ [theregister.co.uk]
Microsoft releases further specs | April. 2008
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/microsoft_posts_protocol_documents/ [theregister.co.uk]

And they state that more will come after gathering feedback between then and June.

Between now and June it will garner feedback from the developer community. Then, at the end of June, Microsoft will publish the final versions of technical documentation - along with definitive patent licensing terms.

are we clear ?

Crystal clear to me .. :)

Re:By following the links....

This has been dissected and shown to promise nothing - because it's impossible to clearly see what exactly the "necessary claims" are, and because useful implementation of the spec without the "merely referenced" stuff may be impossible.