Developers Warned over OOXML Patent Risk 134
Tendraes brings us a story about legal experts who are warning that Microsoft's "covenant not to sue" over use of the OOXML specification is both ambiguous and untested. Developers wishing to make use of OOXML are unlikely to understand the complex legal language of the Open Specification Promise, and such a document - being neither a release nor a contract - has never been tested in court. From ZDNet Asia:
"David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Center at the University of New South Wales, said that Microsoft participants at a recent symposium on the issue found it challenging to explain how an ordinary person 'or even an ordinary lawyer' could easily determine which parts of the specification were covered. 'This lack of certainty would mean a cautious lawyer may be reluctant to advise any third party to rely on the promise without extensive and potentially quite expensive analysis, and even that could be inconclusive,' Vaile said. 'In turn, this could restrict its viability as a usable standard for less well-resourced users, including small developers and many public organizations.'"
Right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Right! (Score:5, Interesting)
For anyone wanting an explanation of what the 'open specification promise' entails it's quite easy. It's a 'promise' from a corporation that barely complies with legal restraints, and only reluctantly operates within the limits of the law. So for what it's worth they might as well have published a blank page. Except then the non-lawyers would probably also conclude it was useless.
If they wanted to put their money where their mouth was they'd release any patents or other potential relevant IP into the public domain. The fact that that's not what they're doing indicates they have no intention of keeping that promise at all.
Re:Right! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Right! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Right! (Score:5, Insightful)
As I read that, in other words, it says "You can use the specifications listed below in those specific versions. Should we choose to update those specifications and make our OOXML implementation conformant to and dependent upon any new features in those specifications, we reserve the right to not add them to the document and sue your ass off if you try to maintain compliance with OOXML in our full implementation."
Re:Right! (Score:5, Interesting)
If the way Microsoft did business is very good, right, and moral, then why not teach this to our kids in our schools? Lacking in creativity? getting bad grades? Pay off your teacher. Buy your way through school through manipulation, power, and influence. Isn't that what Microsoft has done in the real world, except they have bought their way through the government enough to dispell public scrutiny? If we let Microsoft do this, are we not doing our kids a disservice because we are not teaching them the way the world is? Maybe the correct way is not democracy, but to make as much money as possible, any way you can, buying your way through life, and trampling over people who have less power than you?
If we would let Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer take over the world, I would have to say, your free speech would be removed, you would have to pay to post your words anywhere on the internet, and your words would of course be censored, and only speech that would be permitted would have to glorify Microsoft's cause as long as Bill and Steve could use it propaganda for their empire. They are no different than a totalitarian dictatorship trying to take over the world.
Your choice. Freedom or Bondage. I want freedom. In everything I do, I do those things that promote those ideals. In regards to computing, I use only Open Source software such as Linux, Open Office, and the rest of the gems produced as GNU/GPLed Free Open Source software which is the stuff Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer do not want anyone to use because it does not suit their purposes, like MS-Windows, Microsoft Office, or Internet Explorer (stuff that would lock anybody in to giving Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer a perpetual revenue stream without them having to earn it from me.)
Re:Right! (Score:5, Insightful)
People stick with what they're used to. Wine helps with gaming in OS X and Linux, but it's not going to challenge MSFT's dominance.
Do you want to challenge their dominance? Give a PS3 or a Wii as a gift... or even an Xbox 360. Put an end to Windows gaming. Install a copy of OpenOffice.org instead of that evaluation copy of MS Office that comes with their new computer.
Are you sick of providing tech support to your relatives? Show them what it's like to be virus- and spyware-free with OS X or Linux. Let them run Vista and Ubuntu (or whatever distro you like) side-by-side on the same hardware and let them decide for themselves which one better suits their needs.
I can honestly say that I've had a lot of luck. My parents, my little brother, my fiancee and her father all run Ubuntu now. We use CUPS to print documents from our laptops and it never fails. We mount remote file shares easily and spend countless hours playing Battle for Wesnoth, Runescape, etc.
I don't care if you're a Mac or a Linux person... get people to use something other than Windows... anything else will do.
Re:Right! (Score:4, Interesting)
The PS3 and Wii make sense, but the Xbox360? It's also a directX based development platform... That's why most games released for the Xbox360 generally turn up on PC soon after (if not a simultaneous release).
Re:Right! (Score:4, Insightful)
People who currently buy a PC for games AND business/education use the business/education to justify it. If you kill off PC gaming, you'll drive up the cost of PCs as you drive demand down. Meanwhile gamers are still locked into a proprietary platform - just one they can't hope to mod or contribute to as much.
Not a good move.
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MSFT will lose only because they try to be everything to everyone.
Game Development is much easier (Score:5, Informative)
using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;Simple, but Microsoft specific.
Making a cross platform game is a lot harder if you are trying to port something written from Windows because you don't even realise until it happens how non-standard you code can be between operating systems. Perhaps you're using the Windows registry or you're using DirectX. Your only hope really is to score an xbox arcade contract with the publisher Microsoft and if you have written your game in C# and XNA you can give up hope of a port unless you're going to go back and re-write some code in c++.
If you want to make a cross platform game then my advice is to write your code on a different platform (Mac, Linux, etc) and then port it to Windows. You'll find the port much easier this way around as it forces you to write your code to be cross platform and it leaves you open to some great debugging tools such as LatencyTop [latencytop.org] to help you figure out why your game is losing FPS.
That said you can't do all your game programming on Linux because the tools just aren't there. RenderMonkey for shader programming is a good example, but you can easily just do your shader programming on one machine and use the shaders in Linux. Ogre 3D for example has a shader exporter from RenderMonkey.
I have a question (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is everyone, like me, just kinda hoping it's open enough so that we can sorta-promise clients that the software we develop will sorta-work with their piles of legacy, cruft-infested data. (At least, it'll sorta work until MS changes their document spec again and force-upgrades everyone through Genuine Windows YoureScrewed.)
Cyberlaw Centre, Ron Yu (Score:5, Informative)
Of course (Score:1)
It's all about the spec (Score:4, Informative)
Look, if it was a good spec then there would be reason to debate it's license, implied or otherwise. There would be reason to discuss Microsofts standing.
It isn't a good spec, so it isn't relevant.
Re:It's all about the spec (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't a good spec, so it isn't relevant.
Renounce ownership of the patents? (Score:2)
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Microsoft patents around OOXML (Score:5, Informative)
There are also several patents from third parties that read on OOXML, and in theory ISO should halt the process while these are examined and cleared. It looks like ISO won't do that.
Microsoft has several techniques to keep OOXML a captive standard [digistan.org] controlled by a single vendor. Complexity is one. But patents are the very best technique.
Note also that OOXML's complexity is mostly because it's a dump of a legacy format. Some upcoming MS ISO proposals are very clean technically, but also very heavily patented.
It seems clear that the OSP is worthless for GPL implementations, the biggest threat to Microsoft.
At the same time it's worth noting that the format being voted on by ISO is not the format implemented by Office. There are over 2,300 changes and the two formats are not compatible. The reason for pushing for ISO standardisation is to let MS market their formats as "standard", while in fact implementing non-standard vendor-specific formats. And then, using patent threats against anyone who tries to reverse-engineer those.
It's a nice con trick. Many national bodies have realized what's going on but many are too corrupted [digistan.org] or too ignorant to understand.
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So how come this hasn't been a problem for the numerous parts of SOAP that are covered by the OSP and for which there are GPL implementations?
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How can a standard be patented? (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's a promise. (Score:5, Informative)
* (i) an unequivocal promise by words or conduct,
* (ii) evidence that there is a change in position of the promisee as a result of the promise (reliance but not necessarily to their detriment),
* (iii) inequity if the promisor were to go back on the promise.
Untested in court my ass. The first case to use it was 131 years ago.
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Bullshit. It's a promise not to take legal action. It says so in the first sentence:
>> Microsoft irrevocably promises not to assert any Microsoft Necessary Claims against you for
And certainly microsoft would never EVER even consider selling some patents to various patent trolls on behind-the-scenes-off-the-record condition that they sue particular companies.
After all. Microsoft promises not to assert themselves. That's it. What some other little guy does after they get a hold of a patent or two
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I can't figure out if it's a yes or no...
IANAL, but what I interpreted from reading those faqs is that in the first answer, they're worried about limitations from the license. For example, the gpl3 has patent clauses which may or may not be compatible with microsoft retaining their patents. The second answer qualifies this as stating that the promise not to sue applies to everyone, regardless of their development model.
Microsoft often does underhanded things, but everything about the open specification promise actually does seem pretty good
It's NOT the promise we need (Score:2)
Is Microsoft's definition of "Microsoft Necessary Claims" broad enough and clear enough to allow a third party to implement the actual .docx format without legal harassment by Microsoft or Microsoft's sock puppets? With Microsoft, as with the devil, you have to check for weasel language in everything they say.
Promises are different? (Score:1)
Re:Promises are different? (Score:5, Insightful)
Good question.
(1) constitutes a blanket promise connected with ODF that's not restricted to particular facets or features;
(2) is irrevocable;
(3) is global valid in all countries and all jurisdictions insofar as Sun is concerned;
(4) is not time-limited with respect to the past, present, or new features added to future versions of ODF [insofar as Sun is obligated under OASIS IPR rules];
(5) is reciprocal, allowing Sun to be able to take action to protect itself and the community, providing rock-solid safety for developers and end-users;
(6) has no bureaucracy or paperwork;
(7) is simple and clear;
(8) makes no reference to essential claims which sometimes govern whether a waiver is applicable: the Sun statement applies regardless.
Moreover, in the OSP we find additional language limiting rights:
MS + SCO news = Oh, Oh XXXX (Score:2)
The Real Protection (Score:4, Informative)
true, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
legalistic shell game .. (Score:2)
"A:
So the whole motive in this legalistic shell game is to protect MS from being sued over claiming IP ownership in Open Source software.
translation: by signing this agreement you acknowledge Microsofts IP claims against Open Source.
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Re:too many lawyers (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:too many lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
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So they turned something which could be interpreted in different ways in to something which has no meaning at all!
Thus solving the ambiguity problem once and for all.
Re:too many lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
The objections are irrelevant in this case. If a party writes a contract, covenant, deed or other legal document that could be reasonably misinterpreted the ambiguity goes against the party that wrote it. That is why lawyers try to get the other side to draft contracts, its less risky.
Since we are talking patents here the enforceability of the patent is an issue. Given the nature of the problem I somewhat doubt that if the patents are enforceable against OOXML implementations that they would not cover ODF as well.
Microsoft's general approach to patents has been to 1) assert that company A infringes its patents, 2) sign a cross licensing deal with company A in which each company gets access to the patents held by the other 3) write company A a large check being the balance owed.
Of course it is quite possible that Microsoft might start demanding royalties at some point in the future but at this point they seem to care a lot more about not being sued than actually raising net revenue.
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Incident happens or a trend is happening. People or politicians deem is at as a bad thing. A law is written to fix the issue. Now, this may sound straightforward but the problem is that if you enter in this loop a couple of thousand times, law bloat and fragmentation start to happen. Pretty soon you are d
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I had sex in three non legal positions with my wife. yep in some states you can only have sex in certain ways.
there are literally thousand of laws on the books because no one ever cleaned them up(New yorkers have a telephone tax that goes back to the late 1800's)
As well as many laws that were passed just because it made a politician feel good. You could gut out half the laws on the books and things wouldn't change
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The Lawyer gets the same penalty as the person he/she represents.
Never mind - the problem is that there should be a rule stating that any writing that can't be understood by an average person should be declared invalid.
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The only problem I see with this, is the definition of average appears to be getting weaker and weaker due to the dumbing down of society. Eventually we would would end up with laws written like:
Ok, maybe not quite that bad, I hope.
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I agree that stuff should be made as simple as possible though, and bet that's not the case with the MSFT documentation.Do you mean select one in ten for death? (Ducks)
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lawyer.s
You people simply waste time obfuscating everything.
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licence fees to use e.g a insanity defence in a murder case. Why should software developers be patent suits if they don't pay licences for things that are equal
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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If you think about it (did you think about it?), you'll realise you're providing a supporting argument to my post.
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Of course, you've proven that six digit UIDs can have similar problems
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Re:The same has been said of the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft's document on the other hand seems obfuscated on purpose, so that they can claim OOXML to be open and freely available to speed its adoption as a standard and alleviate fears of lock-in... then go to court and assert a different interpretation whenever their interests are sufficiently challenged. Given where Microsoft's interests lie, that's not a farfetched scenario.
Re:The same has been said of the GPL (Score:4, Interesting)
One thing you cannot say for the GPL is that it is ambiguous. While there may be some wriggle room for any lawyer in there, the document states in pretty clear terms what its intent it.
Recently I attended a seminar given by the Chief Council of a technology company. He was addressing the legalities of open-source and free software and, as you might expect, the topic of the legality of the GPL came up. During the talk, he commented that the GPL was generally a solid license, but had some unknowns that made it tough for a lawyer.
After the talk I asked him to elaborate a little on this point, specifically asking under what conditions he would actually advise a client to litigate against a GPL claim. He responded that the issue of dynamic linking against GPL software is a significant unknown. While the FSF has a position on the subject, it is not addressed in the GPL, there is little or no case law on the subject and there are differing opinions within the software developer community on the subject.
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cash flow in mind. As to precedent, see uClibc and Monsoon.
Monsoon screwed up, and knew they did.
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Those phrases contradict each other. Do you know what "ambiguous" means?
Did you even RTFA?! That is the exact argument this guy is using! And I say it is a bullshit argument, using the example of how people tried to use the same bullshit against the GPL.
I have no patience
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Read the FAQ. Cut the bullshit.
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"While there may be some wriggle room for any lawyer in there, the document states in pretty clear terms what its intent is"
while you quoted only:
"there may be some wriggle room for any lawyer in there"
The parent was clearly saying that as far as legal documents go, the GPL is generally not ambiguous, but that's not to say it's got no room at all for debate.
Show me an unambiguous legal document and I'll show you a lawyer who will make it ambiguous.
I'm no
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Not quoting the full sentence does not make a quote out of context. The entire argument is about the existence or otherwise of wriggle room and ambiguity. The full sentence is logically null because it claims both the presence and absence of clarity. It is perfectly valid to select only one clause for the purposes of a clear debate.
Besides, you rather hypocritically choose to drop the other half of my quote, which is perfectly logical substitute for the part I "failed" to quote. It would make no differenc
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You've never read gnu.misc.discuss, have you? Lot's of people in practice find it ambiguous, and when they come to ask about it, long flame wars break out, over the ambiguity.
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There's "lot's" of MS shills and trolls here too.
What's your point?
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Re:The same has been said of the GPL (Score:4, Insightful)
I was able to understand it without any problem, and English is not even my native language.
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That said, you're post isn't too smart. English is my native language and I happen to understand it better than most. I have never found a document of any substance that cannot be interpreted in different ways. Anyone who claims they have understood a document's intent, literal meaning and consequential impact "without any problem" is simply a fool. This is particularly so with respect to a legal document.
This is exactly why I have no patience for
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Maybe I'm making a weak connection here, but challenging a person's interpretation of a document is an insult to their interpretation ability, which is a language skill. You can't prove it's a matter of arrogance (which may be the case, but you can't consider as a fact), so all that's left is a matter of skill or simply lack of effort to apply skill. I'd take either as an insult, personal
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Now, _technical_ _details_ of GPL enforcement, of course, won't be the same in all jurisdictions. For example, GPL technically was not enforceable in Russia a year ago.
But you don't NEED to know all technical details of GPL to understand most of GPL consequences. And you also can read nice FAQs on GPL from the FSF.
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No need for complex legal BS (Score:3, Insightful)
The first step to "open" or "sharing" or whatever TF you want to call is is making stuff accessible (ie easy to use and understand) and making clear licensing is part of that.
If every OpenOffice user needs to first get a legal opinion before using OO, then they may as well buy MS Office. Companies that want to be leg
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Your implication that developers should get a legal opinion before working with OOXML is the exact kind of FUD some people tried to use against the GPL.
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Re:The same has been said of the GPL (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ad hominem much?
If you have an actual counter argument, I'd suggest you present it. The GPP doesn't need to specifically reference what anyone interested in computers will have observed for themselves over the past few decades.
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Re:The same has been said of the GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
For starters, MS' "promise not to sue" is in no part friendly with the GPL (now that you mention it) And the mere fact that you need MS' to decide not to sue you for implementing their "open" standard is quite ridiculous (really...) What on earth prevents MS to suddenly decide to stop the promise?
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Would it be fair to say that a license that has been tested in court is better defined than a license that hasn't? Would it be fair to say that microsoft does not have a history of open specifications? I think both would be fair to say. If microsoft wanted a well defined open license, they should have used one that is already available (GPL, etc.) rather than making up one of their own that i
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One would reckon you are correct. But no court has found this interpretation to be correct or incorrect, which would be definitive. The question is, who wants to be the first to put it to the test? Yes, this is FUD, but I think it is legitimate FUD until microsoft more com
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Lawyers are professionals who are trained to understand the language of the law, just like software developers are professionals who are trained to understand the language of computers. Just as I wouldn't expect a lawyer to be able to writing an operating system, I w
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Seems like you didn't even read the article..
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