Microsoft Word Document ML Schemas Published 439
Lars Munch writes "On Monday the 17th November the xml schemas for the Word Document ML along with documentation, was uploaded to the Infostructurebase (ISB). With the Word Document ML specification anybody can generate, view and process Microsoft word documents on any format." (Here are the legal terms under which the schemas can be used.) "The Word Document ML is based on the W3C specification eXtensible Markup Language (XML), there by providing documents that are easy to integrate into a large variety of systems. The Danish Government Infostructurebase is the first schema repository to make the schemas accessible to the public. The Microsoft Office Document ML schemas and documentation can now be downloaded from the ISB Repository." There are more links on this page.
The patent license terms seem reasonable... (Score:4, Informative)
legal terms (Score:3, Informative)
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:
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Permission to copy, display and distribute this document is available at: [here] [microsoft.com].
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: [here] [microsoft.com].
THE SPECIFICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" [blah blah blah]
The name and trademarks of Microsoft may NOT be used in any manner, including advertising or publicity pertaining to the Specification or its contents without specific, written prior permission. Title to copyright in the Specification will at all times remain with Microsoft.
No other rights are granted by implication, estoppel or otherwise.
following that second link...
Patent License
Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.
Except as provided below, Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license under Microsoft's Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas. A "Licensed Implementation" means only those specific portions of a software product that read and writes files that are fully compliant with the specifications for the Office Schemas. The term "Necessary Claims" means claims of a patent or patent application that are owned or controlled by Microsoft and that are necessarily infringed by reading or writing files pursuant to the requirements of the Office Schemas. A claim is necessarily infringed only when it is not possible to avoid infringing when conforming to the specification because there is no technically reasonable non-infringing alternative for reading or writing such files. Notwithstanding the foregoing, "Necessary Claims" do not include any claims: (i) that would require a payment of royalties by Microsoft to unaffiliated third parties; (ii) covering any enabling technologies that may be necessary to make or use any product incorporating a Licensed Implementation (e.g., word processing, spreadsheet or presentation features or functionality, programming interfaces, protocols), or (iii) covering the reading or writing of files generally or covering the reading or writing of files other than those complying with the requirements of the specifications for the Office Schemas.
If you distribute, license or sell a Licensed Implementation, this license is conditioned upon you requiring that the following notice be prominently displayed in all copies and derivative works of your source code and in copies of the documentation and licenses associated with your Licensed Implementation:
"This product may incorporate intellectual property owned by Microsoft Corporation. The terms and conditions upon which Microsoft is licensing such intellectual property may be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp?frame=true."
By including the above notice in a Licensed Implementation, you will be deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions of this license. You are not licensed to distr
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What does this mean ... (Score:3, Informative)
Now do you or your friends have anything to hide...
;-)
Re:Hmph (Score:1, Informative)
And yes, IAL.
Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Informative)
You are wrong. Word Standard Edition can save into WordML (which schema has been published). Enterprise version allows you to map certain parts of documents into Xml with customer specified schema.
GPL does not require sublicensing (Score:5, Informative)
Not true. Section 7 of the GPL requires that patent rights be publicly available, but it does not require that you personally sublicense those patent rights.
Specifically, GPL section 7 says:
Since the Microsoft patent license does permit royalty-free redistribution, it does not contradict the GPL in this regard (although it may have other incompatibilities; I have not looked at the whole thing thoroughly yet).Don't start hacking yet! (PATENT ALERT) (Score:3, Informative)
"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/xmlpate
(And just for giggles that link is no good)
An "Open" XML schema that needs a patent license to write software that can read or write it is rapidly approaching the speed of useless. So if you had a plan to start work on an Openoffice filter find out what that patent license entails.
Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source (Score:5, Informative)
Just thought you would like to know, the plural of schema is schemata.
Mr. Language Person
Re:Could the problem possibly be in the GPL?! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Valid, non-proprietary XML? (Score:3, Informative)
The new version of Textpad can read UTF-8 encoded files. The old version can only read Latin 1 character set.
I call bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft knows full well that an XML schema cannot be patented. The patent nonsense is a way to scare off open source developers. They may hold patents on some algorithms they've used to implement this in MS Office, but we don't have to use those same algorithms to read those documents with an XML schema capable parser and do whatever we like with them.
Re:No. This is worse than before (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The format is not 100% open, there is binary da (Score:2, Informative)
editdata.mso is "activemime" format (nice, that).
If you base64 decode it, you get something with
a 50 byte header (sometimes it's 54 bytes; not sure why).
The first part of this header is the string "ActiveMime".
Following the header is a zip-deflated OLE stream; zlib can handle it. Open-source
code for reading these OLE streams exists.
But believe me, this is *not* actually documented anywhere...
Re:As open as a punji pit. (Score:3, Informative)
From: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpate
"Except as provided below, Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license under Microsoft's Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas."
Maybe you were just trying for a quick mod up for being anti-MS. Maybe I missed something in what you're trying to say.
Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, not bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Some might say: "But that's a binary format."
Doesn't matter. Microsofts Office-xml format has plenty of binary data. They uuencode it so that it's official XML, but it's still encrypted or command content, not cleartext.
What if Microsoft embedded an ASF video in the word format?
They'd have to uuencode it first, then stick it in. Would this suddenly make the ASF format non-patented? no. And once parts of a format are patented, you can't recreate the whole format without negotiating a patent deal with the holder.
Yes, the law is an ass. No, you can't circumvent it with clever words.
Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Namespaces... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No. This is worse than before (Score:3, Informative)
Remember, they got that amendment through in the European Parliament. While that is a victory, the EP does not have a whole lot of real power, unfortunately. It's the European Commission that decides. And it's quite likely that they'll eventually endorse a version that doesn't have the good amendments.
The EU sucks. They should make it democratic before expanding it.
Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source (Score:1, Informative)
(http://rep.oio.dk/Microsoft.com/officeschemas/
you will see that it referrs you to another license
(http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlp
if you wish to create "software that reads or writes files in the format".
That license contains language that MAY SPECIFICALLY PROHIBIT OPEN SOURCE IMPLEMENTATIONS - it is hard to tell though because the license to which you "explicitly agree" by distributing software under this patent license is NOT AVAILABLE AT THE URL LISTED
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXML
Always remember to read the details before making assumptions. Especially with M$.
Publishing the schema without giving free license to read and write documents in the format is NOT an open license.
Re:Compressed? (Score:3, Informative)
If you change the extension on an OpenOffice document you can uncompress it and read through the XML (ie. the data is definitely not compressed before going into the XML).
Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source (Score:5, Informative)
Did any of you read the actual Microsoft patent statement? It says you must obtain a license if you USE the information in a seperate application for compatability. Quoting them:
"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."
Technically, anyone that looks at it, and uses it to put compatability for Open Office, are infringing on their patent. And now that the spec is in the open, its very easy for microsoft to say "we opened it up, and they infringed, this is why we dont like open source". This also means, that if you DON'T look at it, and instead do manage to reverse engineer it, it is likely that a judge will believe MS that you are lying and instead just read their "open" standard.
Its open, as long as you don't use it.
Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source (Score:1, Informative)