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Microsoft Patenting Office XML Formats
mmurphy000 writes "News(.com)+ reports that Microsoft has filed for patents in multiple jurisdictions to control the way other applications use Office's new XML-based file formats. Musings from pundits suggest that OpenOffice.org and other applications might be blocked from interoperating with Office. This, of course on the heels of today's article on Bruce Perens' concerns over patents."
I knew this was coming. Microsoft sympathizers are always so quick to point out "but look, MS is using XML now so why are you complaining about closed file formats". Now this. Why are we not surprised.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
MS Take a Open Source Standard like XML and Wrap it in Legal BS, Cliam it as their own and make money off it
It also destroys what was the entire rationale for XML, doesn't it? What's the point of a convenient medium through which information may be exchanged if everybody starts patenting their DTD's?
Brace yourself for the next version of DOM/SAX/XPath that not only checks to see if the document is well-formed and/or valid, but that also constrains your access to that document based on some new kind of hybrid between DRM and XML Schema.
It's shit like this that makes me want to get out of computers and get into chemistry.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
they make it xml so its open and easy to work with for developers... now they want to try and make it only the developers that pay them $$ ?
I don't think this is as disasterous as is feared (yet). So MS wants to patent their way of saving information to an open standard? Fine by me if they want to set a legal basis for their formatting.
But should they start some shit over other office document compatibility with that standard - THAT my friends will be a war.
Let's not forget that MS currently has a Wordperfect filter built-in to Office - it's certainly no stranger to support of alien formats. Given the tightrope they constantly walk with the DOJ, I can't see this as interfering with something like OOo's ability to open/save to it.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
This wouldn't bother me so much if they hadn't made a big point of pointing out how XML lets you interoperate. Well, I guess that's still true, but they forgot to see "for a fee."
... and we still will, regardless of these patents (which I haven't even bothered to read about). It's my fucking data, and I'll do what the fuck I like with it thank you very much.
Based on this article even the latest M$Office on the Mac can't read all files from its WinDOS sibling.
Bottom line is, if you want to avoid a lock-in a.k.a. pay to view your own documents if you decide to stop using M$ Software, don't start using the 'new' M$Office in the first place.
my 2 cents
Except that when it's patented , the details are published......
So, someone makes a change to an existing OSS filter, MS can say, "Hey! You used the details of our patent to further your work, pay up or we'll....(insert crushing legal threat here)"
Which means it's going to be much,much harder to get an OSS filter for the next version(s) of MS Office, as you'll have to be pretty strict with the reverse-engineering to ensure you don't wind up in the courts defending your work against a bunch of attack lawyers from a billion-dollar company.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
The bottom line is MS technology should not be used in any way, and we should not belive a bought department of justice will do something about it.
This may sound paranoid but is unfortunatly true. Once you are stuck with MS products they may change the license for new versions as they see fit. If it were not for Linux, Windows would be really expensive today.
Anyone else remember back in the day when all hardware was proprietary? (I don't, it was before I was born, but yeah, I've studied the history books). Think we're headed there with software?? Think the big geeks will ever learn from their mistakes? Open source rocks.
---
Luke
Luke Wertz Website
"The proposed patents apparently seek to protect methods other applications could use to interpret the XML dialect, or schema, Office uses to describe and organize information in documents. Microsoft recently agreed to publish those schemas and is looking at opening other chunks of Office code.
Despite those moves toward openness, the patents could create a barrier to competing software, said Rob Helm, an analyst for research firm Directions on Microsoft.
"This is a direct challenge to software vendors who want to interoperate with Word through XML," he said. "For example, if Corel wanted to improve WordPerfect's support of Word by adopting its XML format...for import/export, they'd probably have to license this patent.""
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS. THE REAL MOTIVATION FOR THE PATENTS = ATTEMPT AT CREATING A ROYALTY INCOME STREAM. YOU WILL SEE MORE OF THIS AS MICROSOFT TRYS TO PROP UP ITS FAILING PROFIT MARGINS.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
"It's like Office but free and doesn't crash."
P-lease....
I like OO, in fact prefer it over MS Office. I promote/advertise it because it is Free Software, Free (no $), has enough features, it allows me to escape from Microsoft's upgrade cycle and is generally a good product.
But to state that it's more stable is simply ridiculous.
Microsoft Office has long left the dark ages of Office 95/97. Office 2000, XP and 2003 harbour plently of bugs (which are usually ironed out after one or two *huge* "service releases") but overall they are stable, if sluggish applications. And I've used both Open Office and StarOffice for the last few years and they've crashed on me a number of times.
Once in a while, I even pass the Turing-Test
By saving documents as XML files, the new Office will allow back-end computing systems such as corporate databases to retrieve and reuse data from documents.
Anyone else see the patents as an excuse to charge companies that develop Office/XML solutions for corporates additional licensing fees with this patent?
I can't believe I see more than a hundred comments here but no one who realizes what's happening here.
"Government seeks discount deal with Microsoft". Headline sound familiar?
No, not the American government, the New Zealand government, where the patent was filed. New Zealand government and business have already started moving to OpenOffice. Just ask google. For Microsoft, this is a crapshoot, but if they can stall OpenOffice adoption, then they get to keep large government contracts. Besides, nothing stops them from adding an OOo file reader if it becomes an issue in the future.
Ghandi fought illegitemate law, by not cooperating with it.
Doing the right thing, and suffering the consequences.
It could be interesting if the entire world violated software patents just like its violating copyrights - but also willingly suffer the consequences/punishment. According to Ghandi this is the most effective way to fight the illegitmacy. By willing to suffer the consequences, you are effectively making your opponent's sword worthless.
I am reminded of what Microsoft said in the Halloween Document:
"OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."
This new patent scheme also explains why, in any discussion of the use of Open Source by governments, some poster always pops up and says, "We don't need Open Source in government, we only need Open Standards."
I guess the idea is that Microsoft's Office XML would still qualify as an "open standard" even though only Microsoft could use it.
The sooner Microsoft is crushed, the better off we will all be.
So Microsoft looked at Java, saw the benefits it had to offer, and decided to create a similar technology that included more advancements. Now Sun sees the enhancements that .NET has over Java, so they include it in their next version of Java (its happening, do some research). This is not a bad thing. The Java guys didn't invent programming languages, believe me. They're work is based on people that came before them.
Proclaiming that one technology is similar or based on another technology does not diminish its value.
It would be obvious to one skilled in the art to use xml as a document processors file format given that abiword already does this.
I believe that abiword could be used as a flat out 102 rejection saying that any xml file format would be obvious. Also given that fact that XHTML is the current HTML standing and waiting spec.
Does anyone know how to contact the patent examiner on this? I'm looking at uspto.gov, but not sure how to tell them how obvious this is.
When I was there I rejected a patent filed by Microsoft for their font data structure as I believe that it is just a data structure and there was nothing unobvious about how you lay out the font data. Especially given the fact that they gave me their old font data structure. In my opinion this is no different. Its just XML!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
it's a bit of an irrelevant discussion at this point I think... but you might as well say that C is a markup language in the idiomatic "Hello World" example. The difference is that XML when used to store documents (Word XML, OOo XML, XHTML, etc.) is declarative and merely describes the text it contains. Postscript, "Hello World" and other procedural languages *operate* on the strings they contain. It's not just a semantic difference -- it's a Fundamental Paradigm Shift (tm).
You can't, for example, do this in Word XML.
Here's a program I just wrote which is similar to a common Postscript example:
If that looks like markup to you, I will have to respectfully submit that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Ever looked at the output of Illustrator's Postscript exporter?
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."