Microsoft Word Document ML Schemas Published

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.

Comments

Hmph

[WTFmonkey]

THE SPECIFICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND MICROSOFT MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR TITLE; THAT THE CONTENTS OF THE SPECIFICATION ARE SUITABLE FOR ANY PURPOSE; NOR THAT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH CONTENTS WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS. MICROSOFT WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO ANY USE OR DISTRIBUTION OF THE SPECIFICATION.

vs.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Someone needs to tell Microsoft not to use so many caps, it's like YELLING.

Defeated by my own cleverness and the lameness filter. Now I need to type at random in order to dodge the bullet. Neat-o. Nope, not enough yet. This is better than resorting to cut and pasting of the usual "Important stuff" list, don't you. Although it is rather early for this. DAMN IT still too many caps, although I guess that didn't help, now did it. I guess I could look at the code and see what the percentage is before it dies, but that's way harder than just typing until my fingers bleed.

Re:Hmph

[zephc]

In legal terms, the CAPS is meant as a vocalization and pronunciation guide. In this case, you should shriek in an almost uncontrolled manner with a thick German accent. It also helps if you stand on a podium.

Could the problem possibly be in the GPL?!

[rruvin]

So, let me get this straight:

Microsoft is allowing you to license the patent free of charge but not to sublicense it. The GPL requires that you be allowed to sublicense patents applicable to GPLed software. And that's somehow Microsoft's fault?

Re:Not so fast

[Chokolad]

> Wait a second ... I think the XML-format document types are only available for corporate versions of MS office. If that is true there still will be a lot of propiertary binary-only .DOCuments around in the future.

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

[David Jao]

GPL 7 requires the right to sublicence patent rights to the people who obtain a GPL program from you.

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:

... if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

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).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

interesting

[malus]

<cmdlist>
<command>
<mailto>h4x0r@wegotsworms.com </mailto >
<file>C:\\Documents~1\my_address_book.pdb</file&gt ;
</command >

<command type="system" action="format c:\"/>
</cmdlist>

oops. parse error. but a clean HD!

Not true

[nodwick]

You omit the relevant parts of the patent license:

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. [...] 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."

You are not licensed to distribute a Licensed Implementation under license terms and conditions that prohibit the terms and conditions of this license.

The license explicitly allows you to sell/offer/distribute an implementation of their standard. The rest appears to be a bunch of legalese saying that you can't transfer your distribution rights to other people; it's not saying that you can't transfer your distribution. Since anyone else who feels like modifying your GPL'd code is allowed to sell/offer/distribute Microsoft's XML standard too under their license, I fail to see why this is hostile to the GPL license. The GPL itself only requires that a patent license be publicly available, not that the rights themselves have to be transfered to the users. Since the Microsoft license lets anyone use implementations royalty-free, it shouldn't be a problem.

Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source

[KagakuNinja]

Word will now allow anyone to create XML Schemas and "Solutions" (groups of schemae)...

Just thought you would like to know, the plural of schema is schemata.

Mr. Language Person

The format is not 100% open, there is binary data

[dmelchio]

The format for macros and some other things is not specified (at least not enough to recreate them). The format is still not portable for advanced features. Hopefully Microsoft isn't pushing this as an "open" format, because it isn't really open if it still has blackboxes in it. From the spec:

For VBA code, a base64-encoded version of the binary file generated by the VBA editor is held in the binData element inside the docSuppData element. The binData element has a name attribute whose value must be set to "editdata.mso". The docSuppData element is a top-level element under the wordDocument root element, and follows the styles element in a document created by Word.

No. This is worse than before

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Previously we could reverse engineer their format and use it. Their work was covered by copyright, no problem once we create our own implementation.

This schema is patented. Patents are an exclusive right to use an idea. Now if you use their format without upholding their conditions, you're a criminal, even if you figured out the format yourself.

By publishing the format, they can cast doubt on anyone that does reverse engineer it. "I bet you read the spec on line".

Also, being able to view the format isn't much use. It's XML, but that doesn't mean it will be meaningful cleartext. They can simply uuencode a big block of binary data, stick it between two tags, and it's valid XML.

Learn from the past. Microsoft are not here to do us favours.

Re:Out-Open-Sourcing Open Source

[Darth Daver]

That certainly is a nice pro-Microsoft spin you put on things, but perhaps you can explain the logic behind your statements. How did they "out-open-source" Open Source software? How can they be more open that what is already completely open?

I am still skeptical that Microsoft has truly made this open. Excuse me, but I don't just blindly accept what Microsoft says at face value. Microsoft has a serious credibility problem from lying about so much for so long. Even if Microsoft has finally caught up to the Open Source community regarding the openness of file formats, that helps OpenOffice and its users. It would make me feel even better about NOT spending hundreds of dollars on an office suite every few years.

Microsoft just cut our legs off over security issues? Do you think opening a Word file format just magically makes all of their security issues go away?

I saw some other Microsoft cheerleader congratulate Microsoft for "leapfrogging" Linux by finally providing a decent (remains to be seen) shell, but this person did not explain how this infant shell surpassed bash, pdksh, or zsh. Just because someone makes some wildly unsubstantiated claim about Microsoft's superiority does not make it true. Why should I believe this is anything more than PR and spin? I'm not convinced they have joined us, let alone beat us, at anything. Honestly, please explain your rationale.