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Microsoft Eases Licensing On Office 2003 Formats
kfiller writes "Microsoft has negotiated a deal with the state of Massachusetts to lower licensing restrictions on the Excel and Word XML formats in Office 2003, in exchange for the state to reconsider their focus on adopting 'open standards' to adopting 'open formats'. Is this just another move to encroach on the open source community?"
Microsoft must have doing that type of thing, they love to keep everything to themselves. They even copy writted the tabbing process, ah well, what can be done
Will it be possible for openoffice to *read* (not write) these files under the new licensing restrictions. If not, then they are not open enough for exchangability. Write support I can understand MS wanting to keep proprietary. The old non-XML format is used as the lowest common denominator between nearly all word processors/spreadsheat applications. However, I would like to see this MS-XML fail due to OOo's XML, and eventually force MS to include support.
I did RTFA and it's a little unclear as to whether this is what's actually happening or not, but I can certainly hope.
Is the new license only available in Massachusetts, or did the State work on Microsoft to get them to open the formats for everyone?
If it's a state-only thing, then Microsoft knows it already lost, and is just doing damage control, no?
Microsoft is no longer the monopoly. They can't enforce their ideas, "either you do it our way or not at all"
I'd disagree with that. Microsoft is still the monopoly insofar as relatively few large installations of Windows/Office have seriously contemplated switching. But I reckon MS have seen the future, and have deduced that unless they tread very carefully, they're not in it.
Monopoly or not, this amounts to the same thing - they're suddenly forced to compete. Not something Microsoft is terribly experienced or indeed good at, so it'll be interesting to see if (how?) they adapt.
If the state was able to eliminate spending completely on software, the state IT department's budget would be considerably lessened. In a bureaucracy like the Mass State government, the larger your budget, the more power you have. So when faced with the option of suddenly cutting their budget requirements by a large amount, of course the suits jumped at an offer that allowed them to maintain the prestige of spending massive amounts.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Even the big guys have to compete sometimes. About 1988 or 1989, IBM was making the PS/2 line, which was 3.5 floppy only. You could get an external 5.25 floppy (low density), but it was expensive and a PITA.
A lot of people wanted 5.25 internal at that time and IBM said 'NO'. Our way or the Highway.
All of the sudden a large number of major corporations and *Government* agencies were buying computers with a specification that said 'Internal 5.25 HD FDD'. I was actually at a event where an IBM rep was trying to tell a major customer that they didn't really need this. One of the effects of this was to automatically remove IBM from the bid process.
Sometime in 1989 or 1990, IBM introduced a 5.25 internal HD FDD for the model 80.
The Moral of this Story?
If enough people wave enough money that someone can't touch, it get's their attention. Even Microsoft.
eric
You may well only consider something to be open if you can get source, or mess around with it yourself, or software is only free if you get source, but the every day user will consider being able to get the format and use it open enough. The presumption that your definition of open is the one "normal folks" use is simply arrogant.
Microsoft is losing customers, particularly European and American state governments, because they don't like Microsoft. Microsoft really does have the best office suite in a technical sense. OO.o is generally less intuitive, and has less features (particularly in spreadsheets, but even the word processor lacks much advanced functionality). Costs are hard to judge, but most studies suggest that using a free office suite instead of MS Office won't pay off over the time periods that corporations and governments make long range financial plans. Switching to OO.o is about politics, not technical or financial superiority.
It's also difficult to switch right now, partially because of proprietary lock-in to the file format. That's one of the things that makes switching so expensive (although probably not the major one, with OO.o import filters being somewhat decent). Customers want to be free to switch. They also want to be free to generate documents from sources other than MS Office and import them natively, and they want to be able to process documents using their own custom tools. Open file formats help all of those things, and so customers are happy.
Microsoft really wants to make customers happy. Opening file formats helps, so Microsoft is doing that. There are risks; if customers continue to hate Microsoft, and Microsoft makes it easier to switch away from them, the obvious result is losing customers. The upside is that they may make customers happy, convincing more to stay. Being a nice guy is directly connected to making customers happy.
From an open-source community view, opening file formats is good. It makes interoperability easier. By itself, though, it's not enough to make customers happy, or to make Microsoft a friend to the OSS community. More moves are necessary, and what they are and when (if ever) the will come is still a big question.
Just a question here, what would Microsoft have to do for you to consider them to be a friendly corporation, rather than an evil and menacing corporate giant? I kind of like them already, but I know I'm unusual in that regard.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Figures, though - the original article was written using Word (had to remove the stupid "smart quotes and other bizarre characters" stuff when cutt-and-pasting the quote).
Oh, you can't do that?
Well, I'm sure you can at least get Firefox pre-installed.
Oh, not that either?
What this is is Microsoft attempting to prevent a State from breaking away from the Microsoft monopoly.
The proprietary, binary extensions in MS's version of XML are patented. That gives MS a lot of power when agreeing to a deal like this.
Just look at MS's work to "extend" SPF and how their license was determined not to be Free enough.
The list of approved formats include
If it passes with MS's formats allowed, then it won't.
Gee, it's almost as if Microsoft were a business, and the market is forcing them to change their practices to stay profitable...
Imagine that.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
What are you talking about? I realize this is a visceral reaction and probably won't do anything for my karma...
.DOC format. Despite the ubiquity of the software, there's no guarantee that anything other than MS Office will be able to read those files in the future.
Of course this isn't any positive sign that MS wants to kill F/OSS projects; they've put it out in black and white. It should never be forgotten, though, that what is really a threat to the MS business model is the whole ideology behind F/OSS. It's much classier to knock Linux as a program than to knock the idea of open-source as evil. Freedom is supposed to be treasured in the US, and MS has a harder job arguing freedom-supporting programmers are communisits than they do arguing Linux is an inferior product with remarkably higher TCO.
Notice that this is MS being willing to open up a file format that is (already? or going to be) obsoleted by their Office production cycle in no time at all. They're talking here about handing out specs to a file format they're ready to break, anyway. Not much magnanimity to be had there, eh?
It's important for end users of MS Office to understand the works they create therein are essentially co-opted by Microsoft into its latest, obfusticated
It's a mealymouth argument, but a couple good slogans would really help... Something like "[OpenOffice, Gnumeric, AbiWord]: Becuase they're your documents."
This is actually what the EU commission thinks is an open standard:
It's a very strict definition. For example, PDF doesn't qualify as an Open Standards, because it's controlled by Adobe and doesn't have an open decision-making procedure
I think Microsoft is pretty scared about this, because most EU member states are going to use this definition, together with previous or future decisions to move to Open Standards. That would mean that MS Office either has to support these Open Standards or it will just be replaced by software that does.
Otherwise, this is just a scam to
Massachusetts should insist on *open* formats, not PR gimmicks. If that one company can take the keys to unlocking public data to its grave, where will that leave MA after all that investment? Not to mention, what are the privacy ramifactions of a format that phones home for every read, write, open, close, save, copy, print, and mail?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
-- There are applications to suit the needs of the average user in many cases, but the average user is not willing to invest the time in making those work and learning to use them.
Why should they, if they can get away without taking the time?
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
I am the paying customer who has made you rich.
You shall have no other priorities before me.
You shall not make for yourself a priority in the form of monopoly or world domination. You shall not seek them; for I, the paying customer, am a demanding customer, punishing the bottom line for the sin of management to the third and fourth product lines of those who are greedy, but showing love to a thousand product lines of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not lock-in the customer, for the customer will not hold anyone guiltless who locks him in.
Remember the law by keeping it holy. Within the law you shall labor and do all your work, but outside the law you shall do no business. Outside the law you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your employee, nor your contractor, nor your family. For the customer is a citizen who has taken part in creating and maintaing the law, but he despises criminals. Therefore the customer blessed the law and made it holy.
Honor the open standards, so that you may live long in the profits the customer is giving you.
You shall not make buggy, insecure, or generally bad products.
You shall not conspire with or attack other businesses.
You shall not steal.
You shall not deceive anyone.
You shall not covet the paying customer's remaining cash. You shall not overcharge him, obsolete his product, break his systems, or covet anything that belongs to your paying customer.
Do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up my commandments.
Case #1. Microsoft fails to get their file formats approved. No problem.
Case #2. Microsoft succeeds in getting their file formats approved.
a. We will need a clean TEST IMPLEMENTATION of
1a. Reader
2a. Writer
b. We will need a way to document any variations between Microsoft's output/input and the Test Implementation.
I don't trust Microsoft NOT to break the published "standard" in small, but important ways.
If Microsoft gets this included, then their program's output must be validated against the standard. If it doesn't meet the standard, then it isn't an option for the government.
And with every Hotfix and ServicePack, Microsoft has the option to introducing irregularities to their output/input.
Learn from the past. Microsoft did similar crap with the beta of Windows 3.0 and DR-DOS.
The REAL problem is that Microsoft will get their file formats approved, get their software into use, then start changing the format they save in. Just a little with each "update".
Eventually, the "open" format is just as proprietary as their closed format is now.